


Glass

by dilapidatedcorvid



Series: Glass: A 1920's Bootlegger AU [1]
Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Begging, Blood and Gore, Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Drinking, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Forbidden Love, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, Knifeplay, Marking, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Praise Kink, Smoking, Smut, Strangulation, background Gideon Nav/Camilla Hect, the gays don't die, this was not supposed to have plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23690023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilapidatedcorvid/pseuds/dilapidatedcorvid
Summary: “I wish we had gotten to you first; you would have been spectacular for the Nine. But alas, we can be our own Romeo and Juliet.” She laughs to herself, grinning and steps back, leaving space between them for Gideon to run. “I hope to never see you again, Griddle, you're much too handsome to paint the streets with.”or, Love in the Time of Tommy Guns.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Series: Glass: A 1920's Bootlegger AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968022
Comments: 110
Kudos: 145





	1. Act I: Which Glass will We Smash

Ever since she was little, Gideon Nav wanted to join the army.

Her foster-parents would scoff at the idea. “Gideon,” they’d say. “The war is over. Peace has come, away from the window now, it’s time for dinner”. Gideon would continue to stare into the park across the house where the neighbourhood boys would be dressed in green, muddy clothes, laughing and shouting as they whack at each other with sticks and play soldier until her foster-mother would pull her away to pray.

Ever since she was little, Gideon Nav wanted to join the army.

Hell, she even applied to enlist, only to be cut after training. Something about not needing soldiers when there was no war coming. Being a soldier was everything Gideon Nav wanted in life.

Until she found the Cohort.

There aren’t many places in the world for a 20-year-old woman who dresses like a man and snarls at them when they so much as come within arm’s distance. And then again, in the few places that are for such folk, they are in high demand. A friend from years back, Camilla, is the one who brings her into the fold. She’s brought to a dimly lit speakeasy and a woman named Deuteros presses a coin of red and gold into her palm.

The Cohort lines a few jobs up for her quickly after they meet. She’s fast, she’s strong, and she’ll go great lengths to get shit done. She wears her pants cuffed over the ankle over shoes she certainly couldn’t afford just two weeks ago, held up in place by a pair of suspenders over a nice white shirt, sleeves rolled up to under her elbows. A newsboys hat covers her shock of red hair as she works, riding quietly in the back of a beat-up Ford, wheels kicking up dust as it bumps along gravel to the side of the river. It’s a secluded place, secretive too. It’s in the Cohort’s interests it stays secretive; some would certainly kill for this drop-off spot. She and Camilla wait in silence, an hour passes, just enough time Gideon starts to think about heading out empty-handed when they catch sight of a boat gliding in. There’s no dock, so they wade out into the water to receive heavy wooden crates filled with clinking glass and the devil’s drink, and they load it into the car before they’re off again, an hour back to town.

She helps to load it into the back of Dominicus, a Cohort syndicate-run front, and she’s handed a fat wad of cash she tucks in her back pocket, and a cigarette for the way home down the warm, sticky streets of Atlantic City. Shrouded in past-midnight darkness, only the flickering streetlamps and the glow of her smoke guide her home.

She spends her mornings sleeping, her afternoons walking the city, and her evenings split between the road and Dominicus. The real Dominicus, located in the back of the store guarded by an ever-zealous Marta Dyas and her shotgun behind the counter. The one where you must take the stairs below and knock a certain kind of way before the heavy steel door would open into a small, dim, smoky room. Gideon stays herself at a table near the bar when she's there, a small drink of whatever's cheap and at the bottom of the bottle, her top two buttons undone. Sweat sticks the material of her shirt to the back of her neck, her only reprieve the condensation slick on the table as it drips off her glass. There's smoke in the air and sticky wood under her feet, and she lifts her drink to the bartender whenever she comes in, always a sly wink for whatever girl is waiting for her drink.

Ever since she was little, Gideon Nav wanted to join the army.

But Gideon Nav isn’t little anymore.

* * *

Gideon Nav loves the Cohort, and the Cohort loves her back.

The Cohort hates the Nine syndicate, and so Gideon hates the Nine syndicate.

It's no secret to anyone that Atlantic City is no dry one, and competition here is stiff. Syndicates play a game of blood and steel and the most brutal of them all stand between the Cohort and the Nonagesimus’ Nine. Of all close to any sort of leg up on the Cohort’s speakeasy, it's the Nine’s Church, and they've been victims and perpetrators both to each other's jealousy and greed. There is no love in the Cohort for the Nine, and Gideon learns this by heart.

There is a code of sorts, an oath every Cohort swears, and Gideon is no exception. Every Cohort knows the consequences of failing at even one tenet and the possible repercussions for the organisation. Gideon wakes to the mantra in her head and goes to bed with it too, like a prayer.

She will not flee from the Nine. She will not give in to the Nine. She will give no quarter to the Nine. She will not spare the Nine.

She's outside cleaning bottles and slotting them back into wooden crates to be taken away when it happens. She's being sloppy: not watching her back, doesn't close the gate quite enough. When she returns to the narrow alleyway, there's a person there with her. It's early and dark enough that she can't see this person's face hidden in the shadows, but not quite dark enough to hide the glint of a six-barreled revolver pointed at her chest.

She slowly raises her hand and takes half a step back, feeling her knife sheath shift comfortingly at her belt. “I'm sorry, you must have lost your way.”

The figure just pulls the hammer back with their thumb with an audible click and Gideon sweats. “What do you want? I don't- I don't have anything of worth to give you.”

The figure just moves closer, the barrel now peeking beyond the shade into the morning’s very first breaths of daylight. They don't stop moving. Black lace emerges from dark and Gideon gulps. She doesn't need to see the face behind the veil to know who this is.

“I _thought_ I heard the Cohort got themselves a new pup a few weeks ago.” The voice is thin, a little reedy, high. It’s assertive as all hell, but there's an undercurrent of something that sounds like amusement, stirring nervousness in Gideon's gut.

Gideon's cheeks flush with indignation. “H-hey! I'm not-”

The raising barrel shuts her up.

“It's good to meet you, Gideon Nav, I've heard many things about you.” The veiled woman steps in closer and Gideon falls back again, keeping distance with every step the woman takes.

_How does she know my name?_ “I don't-” 

“You know _exactly_ who I am, Gideon.”

Gideon feels the wall against her fingers before her back presses against the brick, then her calves, heels flush. The veiled woman doesn't stop, keeps advancing.

She’s terribly menacing despite her short stature. Part of it, certainly, is the fact that the barrel of the gun is aimed square at her sternum. But there’s something in the veiled eyes that makes Gideon’s brain scream to run, to fight back. “Stay back!” Gideon pulls the knife from her belt in a jerky, panicked motion, and holds it out at throat-level with all the threat she can manage. The woman laughs. She doesn't pull the trigger, doesn't stop coming.

Gideon's skin feels like it's going to crawl off her body as the woman presses herself against the blade of the knife without any pretence of fear in her eyes and presses the barrel of the gun under Gideon's jaw, tilting it up until her eyes hurt from the strain of looking at her assailant. She's captivated. She's trapped, a fish gasping for air at the audacity of this woman, at her gall. 

“Oh Gideon,” she purrs, “you have no idea how many people wish they were where you are now. Knife at my neck, no witnesses, just me, you, and our steel between us.” She flashes Gideon a dark smile when she sees Gideon's throat bob with a swallow.

“I wish we had gotten to you first; you would have been spectacular for the Nine. But alas, we can be our own Romeo and Juliet.” She laughs to herself, grinning and steps back, leaving space between them for Gideon to run. “I hope to never see you again, Griddle, you're much too handsome to paint the streets with.”

Gideon's mouth hangs slightly open and dry. _What the fuck is that nickname?_ She doesn’t have the wits about her to ask though, hopped up on adrenaline and fear. The moment she’s half-certain she won’t be shot in the back when she runs, she flees. There's a cacophonous bang behind her that leaves a ringing in her ears and she ducks, covering her head as a brick high above her head chips at the bullet impact, showering her in dust. A flock of gulls up and away at the sound, flapping their wings drying as they take flight. She takes the corner around a brick wall hard and disappears into the maze of alleys, away from Dominicus, away from Harrowhark Nonagesimus.

~~She will not flee from the Nine.~~ She will not give in to the Nine. She will give no quarter to the Nine. She will not spare the Nine.

* * *

Judith Deuteros does not understand when Gideon bursts into her office in the speakeasy to tell her what happened, come the next evening.

“No Cohort leaves a meeting with a Nonagesimus alive, Gideon,” Judith says, even, measured.

Yes, but she did. She’s still here, and she’s very much alive if her still-racing heart is anything to go by.

Judith sends her away with a look of waning patience after her third attempt at explaining. “Take the night off. I need my staff sane. Come back when you’re in better control of your mental faculties.”

Gideon walks out of the speakeasy, unsure of what she’s feeling. Numb, she supposes. She wonders if this is how the soldiers in the Great War felt, looking empty-eyed on the television before her foster-parents would catch her watching war broadcasts and promptly turn it off. She’s numb, barely registering Camilla behind the bar offering her a drink before she’s up the stairs and out the door.

Her feet guide her along the streets of the night-shroud city. There’s a pebble in her way and she kicks it out of the way, watching it bounce down and away into the shadows. She follows, careful not to scuff her shoes when the paved roads turn to cobblestone. Somewhere between disappearing into the shadows and now, she must have found a hidden speakeasy, and finds herself sitting at a table in the back corner of a bar, a rocks glass of rum cradled in her hand.

Gideon looks up and scans the speakeasy, cloudy with cigarette smoke and muggy with humidity. Not the Nine’s Church, and that’s all that matters. She doesn’t remember walking here, knocking, or buying the drink, but she puts it back all the same, the burn of cheap alcohol the only warmth in her chilled body.

She pats her pockets and breathes a sigh of relief when she finds a cigarette, and puts it between her lips, taking her drink along to try and find a light.

There’s a nice gentleman a little ways away who offers her a match and some conversation, the latter which she kindly turns down. She’s in no mood for talk now, and there’s comfort in the silence of the dark nook, so she heads back studiously looking at the floorboards.

Which is how she almost misses that there’s someone else at the table until they’re almost face-to-face.

“Hey, this is my-” The words die in her mouth as she looks up and Harrowhark looks back at her intensely, only the slightest smile on her face. Harrow pulls a chair up beside her own and pats it.

“Please, Gideon. Take a seat.”

Harrowhark’s threats from yesterday still rings loudly in Gideon’s head, but she’s in no position to disagree, so she sets her half-empty glass down at the table, holds her cigarette in one hand, and sits, stiff and unnatural, beside her host. There’s a foot or two’s distance between her and Harrowhark but it could be both an inch or a mile, it’s so goddamn close.

She takes a moment to observe Harrowhark, though the act in and of itself is _terrifying_. She’s not wearing the veil the Reverend Daughter is so famed for. Just a bare face, dressed in the same lacy black dress as last night, or perhaps a new identical one. In this light and without the gun against her head, Gideon’s able to take a moment longer to appreciate Harrowhark’s face. It’s much smaller now that she’s not threatening Gideon, pale, and pointy at the chin. Everything on her looks like a porcelain doll right down to the thin lips that curl into a smile when Gideon’s eyes drift over them.

“Like what you see, Nav?”

Gideon feels the beginning creeps of a flush and she bites the inside of her cheek hard, lifting her eyes to meet Harrowhark’s. “What are you doing here?” she rasps, voice rough like it’s the first time in years she’s speaking. It certainly feels like that.

Harrowhark just smiles, all saccharine sweetness. “I’m just enjoying a night out. How about you, Griddle?”

Gideon gulps, rubbing the rim of her glass nervously. “S-same. Just a drink and a smoke, and then home. ’m not looking for any trouble.”

“And yet trouble just finds you no matter where you go.” Harrowhark grins, tilting her head to the side. Her eyes are black as the night, as the depths of the sea, holding just as many secrets. 

“What do you want, Nonagesimus? I thought you never wanted to see me again.”

Harrowhark’s stupid smile doesn’t disappear, and she just shrugs, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. Her hands fold over each other neatly. “You interest me, Griddle. You’re a lost little puppy in a big city, just seeking someone who will look at you as more than a poor orphan foster-home reject left on the streets with no ambitions and no war to fight.”

Gideon blanches. “How did you-”

“Oh Griddle,” Harrowhark sighs, reaching out her index finger and running it up Gideon’s throat to tug at her chin, “You’re just so simple.”

Somewhere in the back of her head, Gideon registers that she should be angry about that, but she can’t think right now. She can’t breathe without smelling incense, dust, and gin. Harrowhark. Just Harrowhark’s eyes on her are addicting enough to Gideon, and all she can register is a thumb brushing her cheek and her eyelids drifting down a little. She follows Harrow’s beckoning until they’re so close her breaths from parted lips must warm her drinking partner’s lips.

“What do you think, Gideon? We’re on neutral ground, we don’t have to be Cohort-Nine tonight. Want a little attention?”

Something in the back of Gideon’s head screams obscenities at herself for even entertaining the thought and yet… and yet there’s a pull that Gideon can’t free herself from, can’t escape. She’s being reeled in and she’s barely struggling, letting herself get dragged to the ever-bright surface. Damn it, she’s never been good at resisting her vices.

There’s a flash of disappointment on Harrowhark’s face when Gideon pulls away and turns away to take a long pull from her cigarette. It’s just as quickly replaced with a mischievous smile when Gideon stubs it out clumsily against the ashtray and leans in, mouth filled with smoke and head with absolutely nothing, blissfully empty.

It’s awkward. The angle is all wrong and the first touch of lips is more teeth clacking against teeth. It’s not until Harrowhark grabs Gideon’s shirt and pulls her off the chair and to her side that everything falls into place.

Their noses are pressed together almost uncomfortably, lips moving against each other with all the clumsiness of a first kiss, hands pulling at hips and backs. Gideon vaguely registers the feeling of Harrowhark’s thighs wrapping around her waist, too distracted by the way she gasps when Gideon bites her lip.

Gideon remembers something from the hours of stag film she watched once she was free from the foster system. Turns out good Christian foster parents don’t look too kindly on pornography. She traps Harrowhark’s lip between her teeth and tugs gently, drawing a low moan and a sharp tug of her own hair that has her letting go to gasp.

Gideon leans in again but she finds nothing, opening her eyes in confusion to see Harrowhark pulling away and looking out into the rest of the speakeasy. “Hm, we have some uninvited spectators.” She pushes Gideon away hard enough that Gideon stumbles, and she slides off the chair, moving silently towards the door.

Gideon, still flushed and foggy in the mind, grabs her drink and slams the rest of it down, abandoning her half-finished cigarette to follow hastily up the stairs and out the bar.

When she comes up, Harrowhark is halfway down the shadowed alleyway. “Hey, what the fuck, Nonagesimus!” she shouts.

Harrowhark turns and nods her head further into the darkness, and like an idiot, Gideon follows. They disappear into the inky black, Gideon reaching out her hands to feel her way through the narrow corridors of buildings before she reaches a dead end, no Harrowhark in sight.

“Harrowhark?” she asks, feeling the wall. She’s fumbling when she feels a hand wrap around her shoulder and spin her around roughly before lips find hers again, incessant.

Gideon moans, louder than in the speakeasy, and draws Harrowhark’s hips up against hers, bowing her head to arms wrapping around her neck.

It’s intoxicating. Kissing Harrowhark is all teeth and tongue, sharp and sloppy, wet and messy, and Gideon _revels_ in it. She matches Harrowhark ounce for ounce, letting her yank on auburn hair and push them around, lets Harrowhark push her head to a delightfully tapered neck and bite and nip and kiss alabaster skin, addicted to the way she smells.

She can feel Harrowhark’s fingers pushing into her hair and gripping tight in a way that makes her eyes want to roll into the back of her head and she breaks away, following the tug and hisses at the feeling of teeth biting hard against her neck.

“Harrow…” she gasps, and then it’s gone.

Gideon’s eyes fly open at the sudden loss, breathing ragged, squinting to focus on the shape rapidly disappearing into the shadow.

“Harrow?”

Gideon runs her hand through her hair and follows down the alleyway, bursting out onto the street, but Harrowhark Nonagesimus is gone.

~~She will not flee from the Nine. She will not give in to the Nine.~~ She will give no quarter to the Nine. She will not spare the Nine.

* * *

She doesn’t see Harrowhark the next day. Or the day after that. But Gideon has no doubt that Harrowhark sees her, regardless of where she is in this damn city.

She returns to Dominicus the next night, avoiding Camilla’s questioning look from behind the bar, and pours herself a glass of whatever’s at the bottom of the bottle. She sits at the bar and traces her fingers over the woodgrain.

And yet, Camilla is not so easily brushed off. A glass slides under Gideon’s nose and she looks up warily as she hears a glass bottle scraping against a bar top.

“You have a hickie,” Camilla remarks, pushing Gideon’s open shirt collar to the side to expose the fading bruises Harrowhark left the day before.

Gideon brushes her hand aside and grumbles, turning her attention away to poke at dying embers in the ashtray with her fingernail.

“Girl problems, Gideon?”

Gideon just groans, dragging her hands down her face.

Camilla just tips brandy into the glass and pushes it towards her, shooting her a look that says _tell me what’s going on_ , but with a very Hect brand of threat undercutting the offer.

“Why do you care so much? We’ve hooked up like, three times. At most,” Gideon says, voice muffled by her hands.

“It’s sixteen times, actually. And clearly, I’m not the only one you fuck anymore,” Cam deadpans, ever prying.

Gideon peeks through her fingers and sighs. “We didn’t fuck.”

Camilla raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t figure you for someone who’d _take it slow._ ”

She shakes her head. “She’s a bitch. You’d hate her.” Oh, Camilla would hate her _so much_.

Camilla shakes her head, an expression that might be mistaken for affection crossing her face. “Should have come over and let me finish you off.”

Gideon groans. This certainly isn’t helpful when she _had_ gone home and spent the rest of the evening with her hand in her pants. And the next morning. And she definitely thought about doing it too this morning, but it just started to feel pathetic. It’s whatever, she’s barely twenty and it’s been entirely too long since she’s kissed someone other than Camilla. Don’t get her wrong, Cam’s nice and all but Harrowhark is… Harrowhark is something else entirely.

Camilla leans across the table and pats her hair awkwardly. “Don’t be a stranger, Gideon.” She leaves, leaving the bottle of brandy as she goes back to attending the bar.

Gideon picks up the brandy and swirls it around, taking a sip, eyes tracking Camilla’s ass. There’s a good goddamn reason they started hooking up and the offer’s out there. Far be it from her to turn down a good tumble around in bed.

“Hey Cam. Let me know when you’re off tonight?”

Camilla turns with just the slightest traces of a grin on her lips and winks, and Gideon just keeps sipping her drink.

* * *

It’s a damn good thing the first syllable in Harrowhark’s name sounds enough like a desperate pant, there are several times during that week when Gideon’s over at Camilla’s that she almost calls out a different name in bed she turns into a choked moan at the last moment. Normally, Gideon would have no shame over that, and Camilla wouldn’t give two shits, but this is far from normal, and the eyes she sees when she closes her own belong to no one normal either.

If she notices, Cam’s kind enough to not say anything, just throws her arm over Gideon’s stomach when they’re finished, the sheets tangled around their sweaty legs, and presses a kiss to Gideon’s bare shoulder before closing her eyes, head resting on Gideon’s upper arm.

Gideon just stares at the ceiling, chest rising and falling slowly, her heart slowing from its racing. She’s just ever so slightly uncomfortable with the sweat cooling her skin, and Cam’s arm is just a touch too warm on her stomach. Like every night since she ran into Nonagesimus at the speakeasy, she can’t stop thinking about her. Thinking about bird arms and nails scratching down her back, thinking about sharp words and sharper teeth tugging at her lip.

“Gideon, you think so loudly,” Cam grumbles, slapping her side a little.

Gideon looks down to the head of hair that hides Cam’s face, tucked under her arm. “You don’t often complain when I’m loud.” And then upon seeing Cam’s expression when she looks on unimpressed, changes her tune. “Sorry.”

Cam grumbles and rubs her eyes. “This is serious, isn’t it? Whoever you’re pining after, it’s serious.”

Gideon frowns at the ceiling. It’s definitely not serious, because the moment she admits it, it is.

Camilla sighs and rubs a thumb just below the underside of Gideon’s breast soothingly. “It’s clearly bothering you, go talk to her. Anyone would be lucky to have you, you’re a catch, blah blah blah.”

If there’s anything Gideon appreciates about Camilla, it’s how blunt she can be. “It’s complicated.” _Harrowhark is complicated._

Camilla snorts. “Gideon, everything is complicated. You run with a syndicate and illegally bring in alcohol for a living. You’re fucking the bartender while you’re in love with-”

“I’m not in love with her,” Gideon corrects, sharp and stern. “She’s just… on my mind. Anyways, I’ve only seen her twice.”

“Wow, then you have it bad.”

Gideon gives Camilla’s shoulder a shove.

“You always tell me who you’re crushing on. Who is she?”

Gideon refuses to meet her gaze. “No one important.” _At least not to you._

Cam blinks a little suspiciously but lets it go. “You’ll tell me eventually though, right?”

Gideon nods halfheartedly. “Sure, Cam. Sure.”

Cam sighs and pulls herself up the bed to be level with Gideon. “Go find her and the romance of your dreams, Prince Charming.”

Gideon keeps her eyes firmly fixed to the ceiling, only blinking away when Camilla, tired of Gideon’s lack of response, gets up and straddles her waist.

“Gideon.”

Gideon blinks, thoughts returning to herself. Huh. Cam’s tits look really good at this angle. Camilla’s finger taps at her nose and she looks up, making eye contact.

“You big idiot,” Cam ribs gently, just the slightest bit of softness in her smile. “It’s clearly eating at you. If she wants this as much as you, she’ll seek you out. And when she does, don’t say no.” She leans down and kisses Gideon terribly softly, more earnest than ever before. “You deserve someone good, Nav.”

“You’re getting soft,” Gideon says.

“For you? Of course. To the end, don’t you know?”

Gideon smiles weakly. She doesn’t particularly want to think anymore, so she sits up to meet Camilla halfway, kissing her again, other hand wrapping around Cam’s waist, and she lets her mind go blissfully blank.

* * *

It shouldn’t surprise Gideon. It really shouldn’t, but then again, she doesn’t know what to expect from Harrowhark Nonagesimus. In Gideon’s mind, it had to be a one-time thing. Gideon’s no downer on herself, but quite frankly there are forces at play much bigger than sloppy back-alley makeouts. Things like syndicate relations. So it’s destined to be a one-off, a “been there, done that”. No hurt feelings.

She’s bending over to set down a stack of crates in some back alley a little ways away from Dominicus about a week later, humming an aimless tune to herself when she feels something cold, hard, and steel push into her back.

There’s a chill that runs down her back and somehow it scares her more than the blade at her back that her own sheathe is light, that it’s empty. It’s her own knife pressed against her spine, and she goes very, very still.

“Missed me, Griddle?”

All the air leaves Gideon’s lungs, but the chill in her spine is replaced with something else, something warm spreading from where the knife digs into the small of her back.

“Harrowhark.”

“That’s me.”

The blade pulls back and for a gut-wrenching moment, Gideon thinks that she’s about to get stabbed through and left to bleed out on the boxes, a grisly warning for the rest of the Cohort, but the tip never does return. Very slowly, she turns herself around to face Harrowhark. Gideon takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “What do you want, Nonagesimus?”

Harrowhark smiles, thin and dangerous. She spins the knife in her hand and taps the dull side on Gideon’s clavicle. “I thought we were past last names by now, Griddle. So formal.”

Gideon grits her teeth. “I’ll shout. Camilla’s just down the road. She’ll hear, and she’ll come out to blow your fucking brains out.”

Harrowhark’s smiles spreads. “Oh, cute. I think there are many better things for you to be shouting than help, don’t you think so, Griddle?”

The knife tip is brought down to dig into Gideon’s stomach through her shirt and Gideon takes a step back to relieve the pressure. Harrow follows, pressing the tip back against her skin.

“Isn’t this sweet? Just like the first time we met,” Harrowhark purrs, pushing forward, forcing Gideon to backpedal.

“You’re kind of fucked up,” Gideon hisses back, checking over her shoulder as she walks backwards for an escape route to no avail. Panic begins to cloud her vision. What the _fuck_ is Nonagesimus up to?

“An acquired taste.” Harrowhark corrects, grinning manically.

Just like last time, it’s Gideon’s fingers that brush up against the brick wall first before she’s pressing herself against it, eyes wild and breathing heavy.

“Whoopsie, looks like you’ve been cornered again.”

Gideon growls. “If you’re going to kill me, do it,” she hisses, “What are you waiting for?”

Harrowhark cocks her head to the side with a sly grin. “Oh Gideon, there are _so_ many things I’m waiting for.” Harrowhark purrs, hooking the tip under one of Gideon’s buttons and cutting it free, then sliding the knife to the next one. “You interest me, Griddle, and I can’t resist interesting things.” Another button pops off.

Gideon can’t breathe. She’s terrified that if she does, she’ll slice herself open, but it’s more than just that. It’s how dark Harrow’s eyes are right now, how it’s barely perceptible but she’s breathing through her mouth right now too, the slight twitch in her left hand that almost reaches for Gideon’s hip, and Gideon doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to move because Camilla was right. If Harrow wanted this just as much as she did, she’d come find her. And now that she has, she won’t say no.

When Harrow meets her eyes, all Gideon sees is a wild grin as Harrow grips her shirt with one hand, slashing it open the rest of the way, remaining buttons scattering to the cobblestone steps. Gideon feels her knees buckle. They’re so dark, Harrow’s eyes, so blown out. Harrow’s got just the lightest of flushes across her cheeks that will be Gideon’s damnation and salvation both. Fuck. This shouldn’t be getting her wet.

Harrow tears her eyes away first and slowly slides the blade back into the sheath at Gideon’s hip before she’s grabbing the loose collar and yanking Gideon down in a clash of teeth and lips.

Gideon groans, both hands coming up to pull at Harrow’s shoulders, dragging her close. Harrow’s mouth is wet and warm against hers and she’s in heaven, a zealot for Harrow’s lips, ready to fall on her knees in pious worship.

It’s not what Harrowhark has in mind, however, because while she’s distracted, Harrow has gotten a hand to flip her belt buckle open and she’s undoing the button with grace Gideon could never hope to achieve. Those fingers are dangerous. That, of course, is nothing compared to when the zip has been pulled low enough for Harrow to push her hand under it all and cup her.

There are no callouses to speak of, but the pressure is perfect even just barely touching her and Gideon inhales sharply through her nose, hips jerking up. Their lips slip apart, wet and swollen, Gideon moaning low in her throat. She’s glad for Harrow’s control when she’s pushed back against the wall and her lips busied again, leaving her licking desperately into Harrow’s mouth, breathing hard.

“So loud,” Harrow murmurs, grinding the heel of her palm against Gideon’s clit, and Gideon bucks, fingernails digging into delicate silk, lace, and skin.

Gideon squeezes her eyes shut, cheeks flushed to hell. She can feel just how wet she is, smearing Harrow’s palm slick. She rolls her hips in an attempt to get anything else, anything more. Need coils hot and heavy in her abdomen and she aches to be filled. She feels Harrow’s fingers trace idly through her folds, dancing around her entrance and she clenches around nothing.

“Please,” she whispers.

Harrow pulls away and turns Gideon’s head to the side, peppering the side of her neck with kisses. “What was that?”

Gideon moans, mind cast back to the last time Harrow bit into her neck. “Please, Harrow,” she gasps, and she only hates the fact that she’s begging to the Nine a tiny bit.

It’s not just her either, and she feels more than sees Harrow respond with teeth against skin, pain sparking in brilliant white behind her eyelids. A tongue darts out to soothe the bite, and Gideon shivers.

“Fuck me, Harrow. _Please._ ”

“Well since you asked so nicely…”

Gideon has to pull her hand up to bite down on, muffling a howl when two fingers push inside her, and everything is just Harrowhark. The way she smells, the way the taste of her lingers on kiss- and teeth-bruised lips, the way she works pathetic noises out of Gideon’s lips and robs her of breath. Everything building up to this has wound her tight with adrenaline and anticipation, and she’s clenching down hard in desperation.

Harrow’s all too happy to indulge Gideon with curling fingers and a gentle coo into her ear. For all that Gideon feels like every nerve is alight, her entire body coiled tight, thrumming and needy, Harrow is measured, every slide of her fingers steady and calculated. Fingers, free of callouses they are, are delightful as they drag along her front wall in a way that has Gideon’s jaw dropping open, breathing hard.

“H-Harrow…” Something in the back of Gideon’s head screams to slow down, that she won’t last, that she’ll finish embarrassingly quickly if she’s left to go at this pace, but she can’t be bothered. It’s a quick and messy fuck against the brick wall of an abandoned alley, she’s allowed to make a mess. Gideon’s drunk on Harrow’s taste and she wants to drown in this feeling, of being pinned and _ravaged_. Harrow’s teeth mark up her throat and Gideon’s head swims, overwhelmed and sensitive.

“Harrow, I- ah, fuck, Harrow!” Gideon locks up, air pushed out of her lungs and throat stopped as she falls apart in a soundless shout, shattering on Harrow’s ever clever fingers.

Harrow’s still in her when she comes back to herself enough to open her eyes and take her own weight on her legs again, and she hisses when she feels Harrow pull out her fingers. Suddenly her knees are weak again.

“Suck.”

Gideon blinks, sluggish, and sees Harrow’s fingers, slick with her own wetness, thrust before her face. She duly lets her jaw fall open and takes boney digits into her between her lips, mouthing them clean. She’s diligent with her task, licking in the gaps between and dragging the blunt edge of her bottom teeth along the pads of Harrow’s fingers. 

Gideon feels those same fingers press against her tongue and she makes a little noise of surprise, knees buckling as the fingers lead her to sink to the ground. Inch by inch, Gideon finds herself lowering to kneel on the floor in front of Harrow in supplication, tongue trapped and only a moan left to her for worship. She sucks readily, cheeks hollowed as she moves her lips up and down long digits. 

When Harrow removes her fingers, she whines, mourning the loss until Harrow’s lifting her skirt and Gideon gravitates towards her, wrapping her arms around skinny thighs and pressing her lips to Harrow’s cunt. She needs no instructions, purring when she feels fingers tangle themselves in her hair, and she pushes aside damp cloth to kiss and lick and suck.

The sounds Harrow makes are like hymns to her ears, and Gideon purrs, pleased. Harrow tastes like, like Harrow. She’s warm and wet and oh so terribly sensitive and every firm suck is rewarded by a firmer hair tug and a soft groan. Something in Gideon’s gut lurches at the sound, and she wants to hear it again, and again, and again. She’s intoxicated, pushing her tongue up inside and Harrow gasps something dangerously close to her name. Gideon closes her eyes and lets Harrow guide her, lets Harrow take and take and take until her chin is sticky, her jaw sore, and Harrow’s crying out, her voice echoing off the brick walls and burned into Gideon’s memory for all eternity.

She stays, her head nestled between Harrow’s thighs, until she’s pushed out with a hand against her forehead. It’s so much brighter, so much colder outside and when she looks up, she’s squinting at the light. She half expects that to be that, but she’s ever thankful when Harrow cups her jaw and draws her in for a slow kiss.

“Knew we should have gotten you for the Nine,” Harrowhark whispers, and she gives Gideon’s nose a quick kiss before she stands all the way up, ruffling her skirt back into some semblance of order and walks away with all the same poise as from whence she came.

Gideon just watches, on her knees, shirt open and shredded beyond repair, just watching her leave with unfocused eyes and ragged breath.

~~She will not flee from the Nine. She will not give in to the Nine. She will give no quarter to the Nine.~~ She will not spare the Nine.

* * *

“You have hickies again,” Camilla says, sliding another glass with brandy in it across the bar. “Hickies I didn’t give you.”

Gideon doesn’t lift her head from the table from where it’s been for the last half hour, tucked into the elbow of one arm, holding a half-finished cigarette idly between her fingers.

Camilla pokes a smarting bruise and Gideon hisses half-heartedly, batting her away. 

“Did you fuck, at least?”

Gideon stays silent for a bit, lifts her eyes to see the brandy, and sits up for just long enough to take a long dreg. She keeps her eye fixed on the row of spirits in the back, though her mind is falling back in time to the alley, to the taste of lips, the feel of steel against her stomach, the sound of Harrow breathing hard. She nods, takes a drag from her cigarette, and puts her head back down on the bar.

Camilla lifts her eyebrows and nods approvingly. “Do you feel any better?” she asks.

Oddly enough, she doesn’t.

“So either it’s hate-sex or she rejected your advances.” Camilla snorts.

“Suck my dick, Hect.”

Camilla laughs and walks away, leaving the bottle of brandy, and Gideon doesn’t even lift her head to pour herself another two fingers.

“I have a spare set of clothes at the back. Go put on a shirt, Nav.”


	2. Act II: Would it be a Minor Casualty

Gideon doesn’t hear from Nonagesimus for another week. She’d be hurt if Camilla hadn’t told her once before that she was “fine” in bed, which is basically a glowing commendation. So instead she just keeps stocking bottles of the devil’s drink and working downstairs, keeps splitting her mornings between her place and Cam’s, keeps spending her money on rent, stag films, and cigarettes.

It’s no wonder, then, that Gideon’s taken entirely by surprise when she’s walking down the street not quite paying attention one late evening and a large man in a suit walks hard into her shoulder, spinning her out.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Her hand reaches for her sheath, finding purchase on the handle, at the ready.

The figure turns to look at her. He has dull eyes and an even duller voice. Just another man on the streets of Atlantic City. “Canaan House. Two days from now, two in the morning. The Priestess sends her regards.”

No question who The Priestess is. Gideon swallows and nods. Geez, that’s one way to deliver a message. Straightening out her shirt, she continues on her way, tucking her hands in pockets and continues to the corner store.

Come Tuesday early in the wee hours of the morning, she finds herself walking into the Canaan House. It’s a large speakeasy – much bigger than Dominicus, but equally muggy with smoke and body heat. It’s fancy enough that there are a few people with instruments on a small stage in the corner playing some sort of crooning jazz, and she tosses them a coin as she gravitates to the shadowy corners and delicate lace that catches the corner of her eye from a little booth in the back.

“Hello, your majesty of death and darkness, of rot and ruin,” Gideon greets, suddenly glad she decided to wear nicer clothes. Not her nicest clothes though, hell knows if this set will survive tonight’s encounter. She’s still mourning her nice white shirt from a week ago and has yet to buy another to replace it.

Harrowhark humours her a thin-lipped smile as she approaches. “Griddle. Come sit.” She gestures across from her where a whiskey on the rocks is waiting.

Gideon raises an eyebrow slightly but slides into the booth, thumbing the rim of the glass. “Should I worry if this is poisoned?”

“Such insolence. I asked you on a date, Griddle,” Harrowhark says with her head tilted, lips in a perfectly pursed pout.

Gideon lets an amused smile drift across her lips. “A date? Is that what this is? All our other meetings had a distinctively murderous undertone belying it, or was that all just me?”

Harrowhark sighs and reaches for Gideon’s glass, taking a sip and setting it back down. “Happy?”

There’s a part of the rim stained with dark lipstick, smeared in the slightest bit, and Gideon turns the cup until the mark is facing her. She raises the glass in mock salute and lifts it so her lips fit over the stain. “Yes.”

There’s a beat where Gideon thinks Harrowhark is unaffected by her whole little act. Then Harrow tilts her head back a little in contemplation, exposing her throat in the slightest and putting her eyes under the harsh beams of streetlamp light cut by the window shutters. Gideon breathes out slow. God, she’s _gorgeous_.

Harrowhark lifts her own drink to her lips and takes a sip. Gideon thinks she could watch Harrow’s throat move like that in the light forever. Despite the drink in her hand and her own responding swallow, her mouth is suddenly terribly dry.

“What did you call me here for?” she rasps, licking chapped lips.

“Your company,” Harrow answers, and she sets down her glass, reaching over the table to take Gideon’s hand in hers.

Gideon looks to their joined hands and waits. Waits for something to happen, but nothing does. Harrow’s hand is small and cool in her own, the perfect illusion of fragility when she is anything but.

“My company,” Gideon says, words sticking in her throat. “I’m told I’m a miserable wretch to be spending time with.” At least that’s what Aiglamene had told her at training camp the first time she tried to enlist in the army. To be perfectly fair to her though, it was because Aiglamene was in charge of making recruits do laps when they were being insolent, and Gideon has never been anything but insolent to those who had yet to earn her respect.

“Not to me, no,” Harrow answers, and that’s all.

Gideon looks up to meet Harrow’s eyes and Harrow doesn’t look away. Harrow’s eyes are next to pitch black like death, be it night or day, and it must be something about the lighting, but from this angle, her eyes are shining. There’s a certain life to them, something that gets Gideon’s heart racing like she’s a moth headed for light. She’s drawn. Every time she thinks she’s escaped Harrowhark Nonagesimus, she’s drawn right back like a goddamn fish to a worm. She’s only human, after all, and there’s something about Harrowhark’s touch, her voice, her everything that calls to every fibre of her being and holds her there, begs her to stay.

“You’re staring,” Harrow remarks. “It’s considered rude to stare.”

“You never liked me for my manners,” Gideon replies, and she knows she’s right when Harrow doesn’t respond, just keeps doing the same staring into Gideon’s eyes.

It’s a game neither of them wants to stop playing. Eyes locked, unblinking, a battle of will set in a match across this table. The air is thick with smoke from the cigarettes held between the fingers of patrons scattered across the room, and something else. Something that makes Gideon stand and lean across the table, giving up the game to kiss Harrow. Something that burns her like the ash in the tray from her toes up. Harrow tastes like cigarettes, tastes like the salty spray of the sea, tastes like gin. Tastes like freedom.

She can feel Harrow’s finger tracing her collarbone and she shivers, and the soft gasp becomes a groan when the finger becomes three on her sternum pushing her away, disappointed.

She knows she’s got a kicked puppy look on her face when she sits down, and Harrow smiles at that. “Outside. I was hoping you’d share a smoke with me.”

Gideon’s eyes widen. “Uh, sure, sure.”

Harrow finishes her drink and slips off the booth, heading out, and Gideon slams the rest of her drink before chasing after the woman, forever half a step behind.

They emerge into the night sky and Gideon finds a cigarette for Harrow, who takes it with perfectly painted fingers and examines it. “You got a light?”

“Baby, _I’m_ a de _light_.”

If looks could kill, Gideon’s pretty sure she would have just vaporised. But then something happens that sober Gideon would swear was just an alcohol-induced hallucination if she wasn’t barely buzzed.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus giggles.

Gideon nearly fumbles her pack of matches into the drain. She’s overwhelmed with the desire to hear Harrow make this sound every day, every moment they see each other.

With a small smile still on her face, Harrow holds out the smoke. Gideon lights it, letting the match burn out between her fingers as Harrow lifts the cigarette to her mouth and inhales, exhales. She spins it in her fingers and holds it out, and Gideon takes it between her lips, a tiny bit giddy from hearing Harrow laugh, just letting it hang between her teeth with a grin.

“What a delight you are...” Harrow murmurs, letting go of the cigarette to run a thumb over Gideon’s lower lip.

Gideon shivers. Harrow’s a good half-head shorter than her at least, and yet it’s Gideon who feels small in this moment. Feels small under Harrow’s attentive gaze and the pressure of the thumb against her lips. Her mouth tastes like burning tobacco with the cigarette still trapped between her teeth, but she doesn’t have half the focus to even think about inhaling, her breath stolen away by midnight eyes.

Time simply doesn’t exist in that moment when Harrow takes the smoke with one hand, and with the other reaches up and cups the back of Gideon’s head, rocking up onto her toes to kiss her, all tobacco and sweetness. No teeth, no nails, no sharp words, no sharper steel. The tenderness nearly takes Gideon off her feet in surprise, but she’s always been good about landing upright, and she pulls Harrow close, caresses her jaw and _drinks_.

It’s Harrow who makes the first noise this time, a soft whimper that has Gideon’s heart leaping into her throat. She pulls away gently, wanting desperately to see the face of the woman who sings for her like that, brushing her thumbs over Harrow’s cheekbones.

“You’re so beautiful.” She’s not sure where it comes from, but she knows it's something she can no longer keep to herself, nor something she wants to.

Harrow stills against her for a moment and Gideon’s half afraid she’s said something wrong. And then Harrow turns her face to rest her cheek against Gideon’s chest and falls easily into her embrace.

Something in Gideon’s heart gives and she wraps her arms around Harrow’s back, standing in a back alley, just a couple of nobodies sharing a cigarette in each other’s arms.

If only it were that simple.

* * *

Gideon loses track of time. There is no time to speak of when their cigarette’s been stubbed out and all there is in the world is Harrowhark leaned against her chest, whispering sweet nothings against her lips. She’s floating. Gideon could swear they’re just hovering, feet a few inches off the ground, caught up in their little bubble of bliss. Her hands grip on to Harrow’s hips tightly so they don’t float away from each other, too addicted to the taste of lips and tobacco to want to even break away to breathe.

And then someone had to go pop it.

Gideon prides herself on being a rather attentive and perceptive person. Not this time. Not when she’s being distracted by Nonagesimus. So when she feels cold steel bite into the side of her throat, it’s no graceful noise that comes out of her mouth, but a choked, embarrassing noise of shock.

“Nonagesimus. Fancy running into you here.” A voice says, clipped, his consonants pronounced immaculately, and Harrowhark opens her eyes and hisses.

“Tern.”

“It’s me. Looks like you found yourself a mangy mongrel to keep you warm at night. Too bad she won’t be warm much longer.”

Gideon swallows, hand twitching ever so lightly for her blade. The edge of steel bites into her throat and she winces, feeling the metal cut ever so slightly. Bad. This is very, very bad. Her left hand moves slowly to the handle of her own blade and she sizes up the knife in front of her, the way the assailant’s hand is holding it, and starts to plan a way out.

“I’d prefer you to leave us alone, Tern.” Harrow’s hands fist up at her sides, brow creased in concentration. She takes four steps back but her eyes stay on Gideon, something vaguely like concern flashing in them before she’s all business again.

The man snorts. “Don’t be posh, Nonagesimus. Come morning, you’ll just be two bodies in the bottom of the ocean for the fish to feed on.”

That image, not the death but the thought of fish nibbling away at her flesh, has Gideon’s face upturned. She’d really rather not think about herself consumed by fish, no thank you.

“You make a fool of yourself, Tern,” Harrow says, her top lip curled into a grimace. “You forget the power I wield. The Ninth is more than me, and it will certainly not die with me. Bring ruin to your House, brute, bring the wrath of the Nine.”

There’s a flash of a smile on Gideon’s face as she closes her hand over the handle of her knife. God, Harrow’s beautiful _and_ terrifying, and if Gideon ever had a type…

Tern snorts. “Two fewer problems for the Triad. Say goodbye to your new toy.”

Movement catches Gideon’s eye, the twitch of a forearm about to slash a blade over her throat. Gideon reaches up to strike Tern’s wrist down and away from her neck as hard as she can. Her own knife tears out of its sheath and she’s parrying the blade coming back with her own in a terrific clash.

“Go, Harrow, go!”

Tern snarls and hacks down brutally, forcing Gideon on her toes to dodge, parry, and dance out of the way. For all that this man is strong and coordinated, he lacks the same nimbleness Gideon has, and she’s just barely able to slip under a tight slash and stab combination to sink a satisfyingly crunching punch into Tern’s chin. She takes a step back to admire her work and just barely manages to counter the next two of three slashes, one biting into her upper arm and drawing blood.

“Too bad, that’s a nice shirt,” he remarks, stretching his jaw, and kicks Gideon in the centre of her chest, sending her tumbling backwards to sprawl on her back.

Gideon groans, pushing herself up on one arm as the man advances, dagger brandished to put her down. She rolls out of the way as it comes down just in the nick of time, throwing her foot as hard as she can up between his legs.

The brute of a man bends over groaning in pain and Gideon swings her heel back and around to nail him in the throat, sending him into a fit of coughing and choking.

“Gideon!”

Gideon looks up to where the voice is coming from and sees Harrow perched above the brick wall, watches her nod away from the encounter, and disappears over the other side. Swearing, she shoves her dagger back into its sheath and leaps up the wall, her fingers barely catching the lip, and begins to climb.

“Stop, get-” Tern stops to cough again, red in the face. “Get back here!”

Gideon turns to see him aim and chuck his knife. She desperately rolls herself over the lip of the wall as the knife whistles overhead, and she tumbles down the other side, ground racing up towards her. Pain lances up her leg when she lands and her knee gives, but she can’t focus on that right now. She sees Harrow disappear into an alley a little ways away, and she’s pushing herself back to her feet to catch up.

Harrow weaves through the maze of alleys, a wild chase that has Gideon panting and gritting her teeth through the pain in her knee for a good while before they finally burst out onto a street. There’s a car in front of them that Harrow heads to hurriedly and just barely manages to catch the ring of keys Harrow throws at her. “Drive. Out of the city.”

She gets to the driver’s side as quickly as she can, jimmying the key in until she gets the door open and turns on the ignition. Harrow’s already sitting beside her, reaching under her seat to pull out her revolver. “You _can_ drive, right, Gideon?”

Gideon shrugs. “In theory. What, it can’t be that hard, right?”

Harrow stares at her incredulously, and Gideon cracks. “I’m kidding. I learned in the army.”

“There’s so much about you I don’t know.” Harrow murmurs, sliding out the cylinder. “Drive smooth. Smooth is safe, safe is fast.”

Gideon chuckles a little to herself. Like she doesn’t know that. “Yes, ma’am.” 

In any other world, Gideon would have spent at least an hour exploring the car. This is a thing of luxury, nothing like the Ford the Cohort uses to wheel around their liquor but something she could only dream of owning. But Harrow’s getting increasingly nervous, so she hits the gas and pulls out onto the road, putting her foot down heavy. She can hear the thrum of an engine chasing aggressively from behind and she urges the car to accelerate faster, the car roaring in response.

“Whatever happens, keep driving,” Harrow tells her in a voice so calm it terrifies Gideon for a moment.

Gideon glances over, and Harrow’s slowly and methodically dropping bullets into the chamber one by one, sliding the cylinder back in, and giving it a spin. Gideon’s fairly certain that the correct reaction to such a thing is terror and not to find this wildly arousing.

“Eyes on the road, idiot.”

Gideon looks up just in time to swerve away from a parked car she was heading straight towards while distracted.

“No good dying after shaking our tail if you kill us both with your driving.” And then Harrow is leaning out the damn window and taking shots.

Gideon’s fairly certain she’s screaming. This is much faster than she’s ever driven, army boot camp or otherwise, and there’s still the occasional car to swerve around, while Harrow hangs half her body out. They’re Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, ripping down empty streets, the air smelling like smoke and brine and gunpowder. This feels like a fever dream, but the returning gunfire reminds her that it really isn’t.

Harrow slides back into the car and begins to refill her gun. “Head down.”

Gideon ducks, the back glass cracking with the impact of a bullet. “Holy _shit_ , was this part of the date plan?”

“What, you don’t love it?” Harrow cocks back the hammer again and leans out, squeezing off four shots in quick succession.

And well, isn’t that a question to think about.

Harrow hisses, darting back as a bullet pings off too close to her for comfort as the city races by. “How close to the highway are we?”

“A minute or two more.”

“Make it thirty seconds.” Harrow turns one last time and fires.

Gideon can hear something pop loudly behind her and she looks over her shoulder to see the pursuing car spin sharply, one wheel looking sad and deflated, sparks flying as the rim of the wheel scrapes against the street. A person stumbles out of the car door to take shots but they’re a mile off and Gideon takes the turn hard, leaving them behind. 

Beside her, Harrow sits back down, hair wild from the wind, breathing hard, and kisses the cylinder of her gun. Gideon swallows, puts her eyes back on the road, and takes the car out of the city, roaring down the road. “Where to, ma’am?”

“Take the next left and go until you can’t see the city lights in your rear-view mirrors.”

Gideon nods, bringing the car along a slightly bumpy road, kicking up a bit of dust as they go, and she drives until they’re surrounded by darkness, hill on one side, ocean on the other. When Gideon’s certain they’re far enough away, she pulls the car to the side and turns off the engine, just leaning back into her seat in the silence.

Wow, that just happened. She’s still wide-eyed and breathing from the car chase, and if she’s being perfectly honest, part of it was watching Harrow dispatch their pursuers and barely breaking a sweat.

Gideon looks over to Harrow, who has put her gun away and now is, by some miracle, staring right back. Her hands are wringing together a little nervously and it makes Gideon nervous too.

“You okay?”

She’s met by silence and Gideon’s heart seizes. Is Harrow hurt?

“Harrow, are you oka-”

She doesn’t get to finish her sentence. Harrow surges across the space between them and crashes their lips together, full of adrenaline and desire. Gideon humours her, opening her mouth and cupping the back of Harrow’s head in her hand. She can hear blood roaring in her ears, equally from the events of the car chase and from Harrow boldly licking into her mouth.

Harrow is incessant in her demands, hands fisting into Gideon’s hair and the back of her shirt. Gideon hisses sharply when the fabric drags against the cut on her arm and it’s swallowed by eager lips. When Harrow does pull away, Gideon groans. It’s only so Harrow can turn all her attention to divesting Gideon of her shirt though, and Gideon fumbles to help her, cursing her long limbs as the fabric gets caught at her wrists. 

She watches Harrow struggle her way into the backseats and grab needily at her shoulder, and who is Gideon to deny her? She follows like a lost puppy, squirming between the two seats to the back, and lets Harrow arrange them to lay on each other, hands fisted in cloth and hair, joined once more at the mouth. 

The car isn’t quite wide enough for Gideon to lay comfortably, one leg hanging off the seat and the other shin half propped against the car door. Harrow herself, despite being a good bit shorter, looks terribly uncomfortable with her head pressed against the door and some bit or bob other digging into her back, but she seems entirely unbothered, letting her hands roam freely up Gideon’s well-muscled arms and spread over her back.

“Here?” Gideon gasps but puts up no fight when Harrow’s hand cups her breast through her chest bindings, leaning into the touch and kissing her harder. She feels a dull pain that draws a groan out of her from the back of her head and she lets the hand in her hair direct her to Harrow’s neck. She can feel Harrow’s pulse thrumming under her tongue and she hums, biting at pale skin and soothing with her tongue, encouraged by Harrow’s quiet whimpers.

“Griddle…”

It shoots to her core and Gideon moans, sliding her hand up Harrow’s thigh, cupping her hand around lace-covered skin to draw their hips close. She scrapes her teeth along Harrow’s throat, blunt and grazing, and Harrow gasps, tugging on fire red hair.

“Did that car chase do it as good for you as it did for me?” She mumbles, a little grin on her lips.

“Don’t tease.” Harrow bites out the order, voice thick with need, and Gideon hums low and steady.

“Or?”

“I leave you here and drive off myself. You can walk back,” Harrow grits out, and if the raspy growl isn’t the most appealing sound Gideon’s ever heard come from Harrow’s lips.

She surges up and kisses Harrow breathless, nipping incessantly at her lower lip as hands pull down wet panties by the waistband to Harrow’s knees. She swipes a calloused thumb slowly, methodically over Harrow’s clit. “Yes, ma’am.”

Harrow moans, mouth falling open, and softens in Gideon's hands. There’s a certain quality to her willingness to give up control, to be pliant, and Gideon finds herself wanting more. 

Gideon’s captivated. All her life, she’s fought with a knife. She’s drawn surrender with powerful slashes and wicked fast thrusts designed to overwhelm, designed to destroy. It’s the way she’s always fought, and it's the way she wants to fight for the rest of her life. But not with Harrow. Never with Harrow. Harrow, she wants to fight with lips and teeth and nails and growl her into soundless surrender.

Harrow’s fingers dig into Gideon’s back and they moan in chorus, Gideon’s fingers pressing into slick heat and slowly tracing her entrance. “So wet.”

Harrow nods, her head falling as far back as it can go. Her eyelids flutter shut, hips tilting into Gideon’s hand, trying for anything. She’s whimpering gently, pressing her thigh between Gideon’s legs, and Gideon squeezes her eyes shut.

“Oh shit…”

Gideon slides two fingers in easily, pressing her forehead to Harrow’s collar. She’s so warm around her fingers, fluttering gently, and she turns to press reverent kisses against pale skin. Harrow’s perfect. She’s goddamned perfect.

Harrow’s nails scratch when Gideon moves her fingers, twists and curls them to the tune of Harrow’s voice, Gideon’s weight and the warmth of their bodies the only thing keeping them tied to this mortal earth. Harrow’s eyes are closed, cheeks flushed down to her chest, and Gideon follows, kissing down the front of her dress and pushing silk and fabric aside to mouth at Harrow’s pebbled nipple.

“Ah-”

Gideon hums in agreement and grinds her hips down on Harrow’s thigh, uncomfortably wet in her pants. It’s just enough to take off the growling edge that wails for more, for pressure and fingers and lips and touch, and she braces her feet against the floor and the door, pressing the heel of her hand to Harrow’s clit. Two fingers become three, Harrow’s hips bucking in response. The angle wears on Gideon’s wrist but she couldn’t care less. Harrow robbed her of the chance to watch her face when she came last time, she’s not denying herself this.

“Let go, I have you.”

Harrow’s jaw drops in a strangled scream, clenching down hard on Gideon’s fingers. She grips Gideon’s shoulders near painfully, her teeth finding Gideon’s bare shoulder and biting down hard. She’s tight as a coil as she shudders her release, trembling under steadfast warmth.

Gideon turns her face up to kiss her throat, tracing the vein with her tongue. “I have you, I have you,” Gideon whispers, climbing up to press kisses to the side of Harrow’s head and hair, free hands tangling together. “I have you.”

Harrow’s breathing is loud and ragged, a bird boned arm wrapping around Gideon’s waist and the other staying in her hair. She closes her eyes, breathing out through her mouth, heart rate slowly falling back to normal. Her fingers brush up and down Gideon’s spine, tracing the individual vertebrae like meditation.

Gideon lays there and watches, admiring the sharp profile of Harrow’s jaw, and rumbles quietly when she feels Harrow’s hand pet her hair mindlessly. She leans into the touch, cheeks flushed and a dull throb between her legs. She wants, but she doesn’t dare break this holy moment.

Luckily, she doesn’t have to. “Pants off, Griddle.” Harrow rasps eventually, eyes half-lidded, turning her head to look, and Gideon feels like her soul’s been laid bare.

“Uh, yeah, yeah.” She lifts her hips ever so slightly and fumbles with her belt, missing the metal the first time, and trapping her finger the second. “’m never wearing a belt again.” She mumbles with a giggle, struggling until Harrow moves her hands away.

“Never mind.” Harrow whispers, and cups Gideon’s face for a long kiss.

Gideon doesn’t have the will to do anything but follow, magnetised by Harrow’s allure, and she lets Harrow arrange her to straddle a thigh, the hands on her hips setting her on a slow and dirty grind. She gasps, hot and open-mouthed, hand reaching up to brace against the window above Harrow’s head, eyes squeezed shut.

“H-Harrow…”

Harrow whimpers at the sound of her name, pushing Gideon’s chest wrappings down. She laves kisses across Gideon’s breasts, pouring gasoline onto the fire.

“Fuuuck…” Gideon feels more than hears Harrow’s gentle giggle and panting, she drops her head against her arm, beginning to burn with the effort of keeping herself up. Harrow’s thigh presses the seam of her pants perfectly against her clit and she lets out a broken moan. Gideon can vaguely see the windows fogging ever so lightly and there’s a part of her that wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, the air caught in her throat turning into a low moan. The din of her pulse in her ears returns and drowns out all other sounds, the smell of blood and sweat and sex filling her nose. It’s addictive, this concoction of need in the back of a too-expensive car with a too-deadly woman after a too-thrilling chase down the streets of the city.

She’s not sure when she’s coming and when she’s just rutting in pursuit of the feeling that sets her soul alight, but when the roaring of blood in her ears subsides, Harrow’s whispering sweet nothings into the crook of her neck and her body feels tired, feels weak, and she lets herself fall into Harrow’s arms, languid and sprawled out. She just lays there, catching her breath and feeling Harrow _exist_ beside her. Her head swims with it all, the car humid and hot and Harrow like fire in her veins.

“Griddle,” Harrow says, a waver in her voice. “You’re hurt.”

“Hm?” Gideon blinks. She is?

“Your arm. You were cut.”

Hm, an astute observation. Gideon turns to look at her arm and indeed, there’s a deep slash running up her flesh. She forgot about that somewhere between being pulled into the back of the car and now. “Huh, guess I was.” It feels like a thousand years ago now.

Harrow’s eyebrows pinch with something Gideon can’t quite put her finger on, and she gives Gideon’s chest a shove.

“Oof.” Gideon pushes herself up to kneeling. She’s a touch too tall and she bumps her head into the roof, rubbing her head. Silently, she watches Harrow reach to grab her white shirt from the front seat and take her knife, cutting a strip from it. “H-hey,” she protests weakly. “That’s two shirts we’ve ruined now.”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Harrow promises, taking Gideon’s arm and carefully wrapping the fabric around the wound.

Gideon stays silent, just watching Harrow’s hands work around her arm. “It’s okay, it’s not bleeding that much.”

“That’s not the point Griddle,” Harrow says, giving her stomach a gentle shove. “you should have told me.”

Gideon shrugs. “Kind of unimportant when you’re hanging out the window playing hero and all. That was really hot, by the way.”

“You’re so stupid.” Harrow sighs and pulls Gideon in by the waist to hug her, face buried just under her sternum. Her fingers remain on the knot she just tied, fiddling aimlessly. “I don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Gideon’s not sure what to say in response to that. Part of her weighs heavy with guilt. If the Cohort knew. If they knew she had fought to keep the heir of their greatest rival syndicate alive. If they knew what bubbled in wordless screams inside her chest… She just keeps kneeling there and pets Harrow’s hair.

~~She will not flee from the Nine. She will not give in to the Nine. She will give no quarter to the Nine. She will not spare the Nine.~~

* * *

“Gideon.”

Gideon looks up to meet Camilla’s eyes, peering curiously from behind the bar.

“Something’s on your mind.”

Gideon rubs her jaw, looking at the glass of what once was whiskey in her hand. “Is it so bad that I’m using my head some, now?” she jokes.

Camilla rolls her eyes and takes the glass, rinsing it. “Maybe. Depends on what you’re thinking about.”

“Nothing complex enough to warrant your scholar’s brain, o’ wise one.”

Camilla pulls a face in jest. “Asshole.”

“You know it.”

Camilla returns with another glass, this time of rum, and sets it in front of Gideon. “You haven’t been at mine in a while so if you’re still fucking her, your girl hasn’t turned down your advances. Is the hate-sex really that good?”

Gideon just raises her glass, pointedly ignoring the question. “To unexpected adventures.”

“You’re a hot mess, Nav.” Cam sighs, and pours herself a glass to clink against Gideon’s.

“Girls seem to like it fine.”

Cam just shakes her head, finishes her drink, and takes Gideon’s empy glass. “We have a shipment to pick up later, don’t drink yourself into a stupor.”

Gideon’s chair legs scrape against the speakeasy floor. Her knee still twinges a bit, but it doesn’t stop her from leaning the stool back and pulling out a cigarette. She lights it and breathes in deep, admiring the space. Dominicus. She’s memorised every scuff on the bar top, knows which keys on the piano in the back are out of tune, and run her fingers a thousand times over the wooden pillars that dot this space. All considering, Gideon’s got herself a pretty tidy parcel in life.

It’d be a shame if something were to change that.


	3. Act III: Or One that Binds Us to Make Us Last

“It’s fucking cold,” Gideon grumbles, taking a drag from her smoke to try and put heat back into her body. She rubs her hands together, toes at the edge of where the waves lap onto the shore.

Camilla’s leaning against the hood of the car a dozen feet back. “Should have worn a jacket, dumbass. I can barely see your precious bicep outlines when it’s this dark. You want mine?”

Gideon shakes her head and tucks her hands under her biceps a bit to push them out. “It’s fine. Just nippy.”

Camilla snorts.

There’s the slightest ripple in the water and Gideon squints into the darkness, making out a shape moving vaguely towards them.

She can hear the shift of fabric as Cam pulls her sleeve up to check her watch. “He’s late.”

“Think they ran into trouble upstream?”

Cam’s about to answer when a pair of headlights cast across the not-oft travelled gravel path behind them. She and Gideon both dive down behind the body of their car to hide. Cam slowly opens the car door and tosses a pistol to Gideon wordlessly, taking the Tommy for herself. Gideon stubs out her cigarette and they crouch, waiting in silence hoping it just passes by.

The headlights come nearer, the sound of gravel crunching under wheels fills the air, and Gideon finds that she’s not breathing anymore. The sound comes closer and Cam pushes her head further down.

“Shit.”

Gideon watches light flood up against the side of their car and spill beneath it as the newcomers take their vehicle down the slope to the banks.

“Cops?”

“No idea.”

The car stops, lights still shining on them, and Gideon hears doors open and slam shut.

“Cohort scum.”

Gideon’s eyes widen. She recognises that voice. The man in the alley. Tern.

“Where are you, punk…” he growls, loudly cocking his gun. “I know you’re here…”

“You speak too much.” A woman’s voice this time, and the crunch of a shoe on gravel. “It makes you sound like a villain.”

“Ianthe, be nice.” Another woman’s voice, thinner and significantly more breathy.

Tern snarls. “Come out come out wherever you are…” he sings, boots crunching on the ground.

Camilla shoots Gideon a wide-eyed questioning glare, and Gideon mouths back: “later”.

Camilla glares harder and readies her gun.

“It’d be a real pity, getting this nice car all dirty,” Tern rumbles, slapping the roof of the car Gideon and Camilla are hidden behind, “Might as well just come out and-”

“Naberius. Down.”

There’s squealing on the road above and the sound of pebbles shifting underfoot as movement appears in the distance. Another set of headlights flood the night darkness, taking a hard turn into the rocky slope, and there’s the sound of two pairs of feet hitting rocky earth.

“Triad. This is ours.” The voice is cracked and sounds like a rusted machine creaking to life after a hundred years under the Atlantic.

Not cops either. Cam motions for Gideon to stay down and Gideon itches to move, itches to see who it is.

One of the new voices loudly snorts back some sort of phlegm and metal strikes metal, and then a loading slide sounds. “The Nine bids ya leave, or I rip ya full ’a holes.”

Gideon’s eyes widen. Harrow’s people. What the hell are they doing here? Is Harrow with them?

“Dun matter much to me though.” He hawks and spits. “’m gonn’ riddle ya with bullets ‘nyways.”

Gideon peeks over the hood of the car. Of the Triad three, she only recognises one: Tern from the alley. The other two are fresh faces. One is tall and breathtakingly beautiful, the wind off the ocean setting beautiful golden hair aflutter. Beside her is another woman, looking rather like the first but pale and upsetting to look at when compared to the other. Beautiful One’s sister, perhaps. Her eyes are intense in a way that frankly scares Gideon a little.

“I don’t think so,” the Beautiful One calls out. “My name is Coronabeth Tridentarius of the Triad syndicate. I’m here to negotiate with the vessel’s captain, not to kill. That doesn’t mean I won’t, though. Tell your dear Reverend Daughter we caught wind first and leave, on pain of death.”

“I’ll feed you to the fishes.” There Tern goes with the fish again.

“Can’t if ya dead,” someone drawls, long and laboured, and the ground around them kicks up in stones and pebbles as bullets scatter across. There’s the heavy ping of metal embedding in steel doors and returning gunfire from the Triad.

“Now?” Gideon mouths to Cam. They’re going to have to act fast if they still want cover. Try and catch them while they’re not ready. While they’re still talking. While they’re still distracted.

Cam nods to Gideon, face set in a grim line. “To the end,” she mouths. They rise, guns brandished, into the glaring headlights of the two cars parked in front of them. They join in the gunfire before there’s a sound like a clap of thunder and the flash of a muzzle. There’s an explosion of blood to Gideon’s side, and Camilla drops, gun clattering to the ground.

They were ready.

Gideon, caught up in the moment, squeezes off a shot towards the Triad. It hits Coronabeth right between the eyes. There’s a moment where her body begins to fall forward, and then two more bullets rip into her torso, tipping her over. She crumples like a sack of potatoes, bleeding out of three gaping wounds as she gasps for air like a dying fish.

Gideon ducks back down and pulls back the slide of her gun as a spray of bullets head her way, shredding up the side of the car. Fuck, Deuteros is going to be _so_ mad. Glass shatters overhead and she covers her head as best she can, feeling shards shower her neck and back.

There’s a half a moment of stillness before the steady rat-ata-tat of a Tommy gun cuts through the air again, ricocheting off metal and stone. A pause, another burst, and then a different bang. Louder this time, and the other woman cries out.

Gideon hears swearing, the woman-- Ianthe?-- grunting in pain. 

“Ianthe, let’s go.” That’s certainly Tern.

A car door opens and shuts, an engine roaring to life. There’s a sustained burst of gunfire as the Triad car speeds off, glass shattering, tires squealing, and silence falls over the battlefield, the car disappearing into the night.

Two sets of footsteps approach. “Come out, bitch. Nighty-night time. No guns or we make the hurt last.”

Blood and death stinks up the air and Gideon waits with bated breath, eyes wide and wild. She breathes hard, leaned against the car. This is how she dies. If there’s anything Gideon fears in this moment, it’s a drawn-out death. One that leaves her skin flayed on the sharp rocks, gurgling past her own blood, desperately gasping for air. One where she dies with fear written in eyes wide open.

She tosses her pistol past the shelter of the car into the light and she puts her hands up very slowly, coming to stand. She turns to face her attackers, squinting at the light. Two bodies stand before her, both large and scarred, one wielding a Tommy gun, the other with a pistol, silhouetted by the lights. The one with the Tommy lifts his weapon and Gideon turns her face away, closes her eyes, and waits for death.

“Crux, wait!”

Two projectiles zip by her and Gideon breathes in. Breathes out. She’s had a good run.

But then… no blinding pain. No instant death. Nope, Gideon is still very much alive. She slowly opens her eyes and turns towards the headlights. It blinds her for a moment and she covers her eyes a little.

It’s two men in front of her. One is decrepit and ancient, looking like he’d sooner keel over from a heart attack than take another step. Beside him, a younger man, terribly misshapen and strangely proportioned to look like a stuffed animal run over by a train. The one who told the older man, Crux, to stop.

“It’s the flamehaired. The Reverend Daughter said to leave her be.”

Crux, beard long and stringy, looking it hadn’t been brushed in years, growls. He keeps his firearm levelled at Gideon, illuminated by the lights. “Better ’nother dead.”

The younger of the two tilts the barrel of Crux’s gun into the sky. “And defy the Priestess? Have our honour tarnished? Away. Another day, this shipment is theirs to take.”

Crux hmphs loudly, hawks up a glob and spits it towards Gideon’s general direction. “Go die.”

_Go die to you too._ Gideon thinks.

The two men get back in the car and the engine turns on. It reverses out of the bank and disappears the way it came, leaving Gideon standing in silence save the sound of the waves lapping gently over pebbles under her feet.

“Gideon…”

The pained groan draws her attention and Gideon’s running to Camilla who is laying on the ground with her eyes squeezed shut in pain. “Fuck, _fuck_. What happened, what-”

Gideon starts patting to find the wound and Camilla cries out. “Shit. Fucker!” She kicks sloppily at Gideon, shoving her away. “Fucking _hells_ ,” she bites out. “Right arm. Gah, _fuck_!.”

Gideon pushes aside Cam’s jacket, and underneath her white shirt sleeve is staining red. “Okay, okay…” She looks up to see the boat getting close. “What do we…”

Cam opens her eyes, hissing. Her teeth are chattering. “I got shot for that whiskey. I swear to god, Gideon, if it doesn’t make it back to Dominicus...” Her words fade off and she’s shivering again.

“Okay, yeah, yeah. You… you stay put.”

Cam chuckles darkly and leans against the side of the car, breathing laboured and irregular. “I’m not… going anywhere...”

Gideon races out to the water and she struggles all twelve crates into the car. It’s harder when her knee starts to throb, still protesting from her little adventure with Harrowhark, but after a significant amount of grunting and staggering, they’re all safely packed in.

“Is it still safe to drop off here?” the man asks from atop his boat.

Gideon looks over her shoulder. _The Reverend Daughter said to leave her be._ “Yeah,” she nods, turning up to him. “Next week, same place.”

The man’s a little sceptical but he wasn’t being paid to ask questions, so he catches the sack Gideon tosses up at him and takes the boat back out to deeper waters.

Gideon steps back out from the water, weakly wringing her pants, wet from thighs down. She sees only a single body on the beach, shot full of holes, and she staggers over to brush aside blood-slicked hair. Even in death, Coronabeth is beautiful. There’s something incredibly off-putting, however, about unmarred skin pockmarked by bullets fading to pallor, and Gideon whispers a prayer she remembers her foster-mother teaching her, closing the eyes.

“All done?” Cam asks, face paler now, and with a thin sheen of sweat around her forehead.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Gideon takes off her shirt and shivers in the cold night, folding it into something that looks close enough to the compress she practised with back in army training and makes her way over to press it to Cam’s wound. Harrow owes her a third shirt.

Cam lets out a long, pained grunt and raises her arm to be helped into the passenger seat.

“The girl. It’s Harrowhark Nonagesimus, isn’t it,” she says, half an hour into their silent drive home.

Gideon chews on her bottom lip. She doesn’t want to lie to her best friend. Hell, she even promised to tell her eventually. She wonders if Cam would think this to be betrayal. She doesn’t want to disappoint her. 

“Yeah.”

Cam sighs, leaning back her head tiredly. “We’re talking about this later then.” 

Gideon doesn’t take her eyes off the road.

“Nav?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Camilla closes her eyes and Gideon drives, the silence suffocating.

* * *

“So explain one more time,” Judith Deuteros says, eyebrows pinched together as Camilla sits a little behind her on her chair in the office, upper arm and shoulder bandaged and a glass of whiskey in hand.

Gideon stands there with her shirt back on, part of it caked in dried blood, but it just seems so terribly rude to speak to her superior without some sort of covering. There wasn’t enough time to get a change between then and now and she doesn’t want to be here. She’s exhausted. The adrenaline has run its course through her body and she feels slow and sluggish. Her hands hurt from gripping the handle of her pistol too hard, her knee throbs from overworking it, and she can’t stop seeing the way Cam fell back, expression half a grimace of pain and half dull shock.

Gideon swallows and says for the third time: “We waited for the shipment of whiskey. Someone must have caught wind of our drop-off point. First three from the Triads, then two from the Nine arrived. A Triad is dead, another shot. Camilla fell, and the Nine were going to finish us off-”

“And yet you’re still here.”

“Yes.”

“So the Nine let you walk free. And you let them leave alive.”

Gideon winces, swallows. “Yes.” The pit in her stomach grows. She doesn’t want to disappoint the Cohort either, but there’s very little of her dignity to be salvaged.

Deuteros drums her fingers on the wood of her desk. “The Triad have been bold as of late. Their presence does not bode well for us or the Nine, nor is it a fair omen. At least you had the wits about you to not take on two brutes alone after being given clemency. As for that, you don’t know _why_ they left you alive without horribly mutilating Camilla and making you their little messenger pigeon? No offence, Camilla.”

“None taken.”

Gideon stares at her shoes. She’s torn. Either she swears herself to the Cohort and speaks the truth. The consequences? Excommunication, if she’s lucky. Execution and her head sent to Harrow, more likely. She’d lose everything. Or, she could swear herself to Harrow and lie. The consequences? If the Cohort finds out, she loses the Cohort and almost certainly her head again. If the Cohort finds out, she could also be scuttling Camilla’s relationship with the Cohort.

“Well, Gideon?”

Gideon thinks she’s going to have a heart attack. “No. I can’t think of why.”

She looks to Camilla and her face betrays nothing. Deuteros has a deeply contemplative look on her face. Gideon feels like her eyes are peering right through her body, through her walls to grasp at the thread of truth tangled in a knot of lies. It’s incredibly uncomfortable and Gideon just tries not to squirm.

“Perhaps a greater destiny awaits you in the eyes of the Nine,” Dueteros finally says, and motions for Camilla to get off her chair. “Beware, Gideon. You walked away once, don’t be so foolish as to think you’ll walk away a second time.”

_Fourth time, actually._ “Yes ma’am.”

She can feel Camilla staring holes into the back of her head as they leave, and when Gideon tries to sit at the bar, Camilla gives her a push with her good arm. “My place.”

Gideon doesn’t try to resist.

* * *

“Harrowhark Nonagesimus.”

Gideon pulls out one of Camilla’s chairs in the living room for her.

“No wonder _it’s complicated._ ”

Camilla stands across the room, arms crossed as best she can, quite clear that she isn’t about to sit. Fine. Gideon takes the chair, elbows on knees, face buried in hands.

“Since when.”

“Camilla-”

“Since when, Gideon.”

Gideon closes her eyes and thinks. “When I walked out of Deuteros’ office and ignored you. A month and a bit ago.”

Camilla’s is silent as she thinks, eyes unfocusing slightly as she brings back memories. “I’m surprised you kept it a secret for this long. You wouldn’t know subtle if it flashed you.”

Gideon snorts. If she’s being honest, she’s surprised too.

“Is she why you had that ugly cut on your arm? And don’t think I didn’t notice the limp either.”

Gideon nods. “Not like that, though. Knife fight with someone else.”

Gideon can’t see it, but she feels the atmosphere in the room change as a singular eyebrow goes up.

“Triad.”

Camilla sighs loudly. “This keeps getting messier.”

“I knowww,” Gideon groans, dragging her palms down her cheeks. “It was just… I said yes once. And now we’re here.”

“Something tells me you don’t want this to stop.”

“Why are you so damn perceptive?”

“Someone has to have brains between the two of us.”

Gideon sighs into her palms. “It’s exciting. It’s thrilling to be with her. She’s so… so… unpredictable. Every moment with her is like balancing on knifepoint. She’ll make every breath you take with her feel like it’s your first and your last. It’s… I can’t explain it.”

“Must be nice,” Cam deadpans. “And I know it’s a bit much for someone of your intelligence, but you _have_ thought of the consequences of this, yes?”

Okay, yeah, she kind of deserved that. “… no, not before today.”

A chair scrapes against the floor and Camilla sits down beside her. “I just wish you had told me earlier.”

“You’re Cohort.”

“I suppose.”

They sit in silence, Camilla’s hand coming to rest on Gideon’s shoulder. “But I’d hope you’d see me as your friend first.”

Gideon turns her face a little to look at her, confused.

“What do you need me to do, Nav? Unless you don’t have a plan, because then we need to start making one.”

“What do you mean?” she croaks.

“I mean, pony up. Line your ducks in a row. I’m going to help you get out of this mess you got yourself into,” Camilla says, and there’s a frightening amount of sincerity in her voice.

“You’ll probably get kicked out of the Cohort. You might die.”

She shrugs, then nods. “Yeah, but it’ll be with you.”

“With me,” Gideon echoes.

“To the end, fucker. What do you think that means?”

Gideon’s suddenly blinking back tears and she leans across to hug Camilla hard, wary of her bound arm.

Camilla stiffens, but relaxes ever so slightly, awkwardly patting Gideon’s back with her good hand.

“Thank you,” Gideon says, muffled in Camilla’s shirt.

Camilla just nods stiffly, and then gently pushes Gideon out of the embrace. “You had my back when we were kids. Now I have yours. But first, go sleep. You look like _shit_.”

Gideon barks out a laugh and wipes moisture out of her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, says you.”

Camilla gives her the faintest of smiles. “You can stay over.”

Gideon shakes her head. “I’ve asked too much of you already. Anyways, the lady of penumbral darkness probably has a messenger out there waiting for me. Might as well meet her head-on.”

Camilla squeezes her arm. “Be wary, Gideon. I trust you. I don’t trust _her_. I have no idea what Harrowhark has in store for you, but you have to be prepared that it might not be all gold.”

Gideon nods. “Thank you.”

Camilla hesitates for a second and then pulls Gideon in for a kiss on the forehead. “Walk in peace.”

Gideon sniffles. “Yeah. Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

* * *

“Griddle.”

Gideon doesn’t struggle against the hand that wraps around her upper arm and tugs her into an alley close to her place, and she’s even less surprised when she sees Harrow fussing over her, checking quickly at her limbs. Harrow hisses at the sight of dried blood on her shirt, Camilla’s blood, and pulls Gideon’s shirt open to check unmarred skin.

“It’s fine, Harrow, I’m okay. It’s okay,” Gideon tries to reassure her.

Harrow doesn’t stop, fretting and walking around Gideon, eyes raking over her for signs of injury, of fresh blood, of a damn hair out of place. 

“Harrow. Harrow!” Gideon runs her hand down Harrow’s shoulder gently, and that’s what gets her to look up, a clouded-over look in her eye. “It’s okay.”

Harrow shakes her head and she folds herself into Gideon’s chest, shock-still save the short, slightly panicked breaths she’s taking. Her fingers wrap around Gideon’s belt and they work along the leather anxiously.

Gideon rubs her hand over Harrow’s back in big, soothing circles, feeling the sharp edges of her shoulder blades against her palm, the bumps of her spine against fingertips. She tucks Harrow’s head under her chin, breathes in the smell of her hair.

“It’s not okay,” Harrow whispers. “My people almost killed you.” 

“They didn’t though. They kind of saved me,” Gideon says. It’s a poor phrase for such a time as this but Gideon has never been a rich woman. She wishes she were better at words, better at comfort.

Harrow turns her face so that her cheek is pressed into Gideon’s chest, listening to Gideon’s heart beat slow and steady. “I don’t want to be the reason you die.” Harrow’s thin fingers fist tightly into Gideon’s shirt.

It’s an admission Gideon’s not expecting, and she doesn’t know what to say to that, so they just stand there in the shadows, hidden from the yellow-orange cast of streetlamps, caught in each other’s embrace. A slight chill sets into Gideon’s bones and she lifts her head to see the darkest of night fading, giving way to a dusty blue of a slowly waking morning sky.

“It’s late,” she remarks. “Stay with me?”

Harrow makes no move to pull away or disagree, so Gideon guides her down the winding streets into her little abode, closes the door behind them, and leads her to her little bedroom. She sits Harrow down and begins to peel off her ruined shirt, tossing it aside to join the growing pile of shredded and bloodied cloth.

Harrow does not comment.

“I have a spare sleeping shirt in the closet, feel free to take that. I won’t look. On my honour,” Gideon says, trying to be chivalrous. Not that it makes much difference now.

Gideon casts aside her belt and takes off her pants without fanfare, stepping into the bathroom to give herself a rub down with a wet cloth. The cold water is comforting against her cheeks, grounding. She hadn’t noticed until now but there’s a spattering of blood against her jaw and she wipes it clean. The face that looks back is tired and paler than Gideon would have liked it to be. Shaking her head, she rinses the cloth and keeps working down her body, cleaning dust from the drop-off point and blood that soaked through her ruined shirt from her skin.

When she returns to the bedroom, Harrow hasn’t moved, still silent. Gideon’s brow frowns, saddened, and kneels by Harrow’s feet. “Harrow,” She whispers, brushing aside a lock of dark hair from Harrow’s face. To her utter amazement, Harrow’s cheeks are damp, and she looks away.

“Oh, Harrow.” Gideon takes one of Harrow’s thin, bony hands and raises it to her lips, kissing smooth knuckles. She turns it over and kisses the inside of her wrist, then her palm, reverent.

The fingers gently curl under Gideon’s chin and Gideon holds her head very steady for Harrow’s hand.

A moment later, Harrow’s hand comes to cup against her jaw. The hand lifts and Gideon follows, her and Harrow meeting in a slide of lips. What foolishness. That Gideon would believe she, a Cohort, and Harrow, the heir of her greatest rival syndicate, could love and it would be as simple as that. That the world would not come to a screeching halt around them and everything fall apart around them as the perpetual motion of the universe unhinges and sows chaos into every corner of Order’s domain.

Everything turns to dust and decay around them, and Gideon sees that it is beautiful.

She helps Harrow undress and put on a loose white shirt and linen pants, then helps her under the covers. She puts on her own shirt and slides under herself, the weight of a blanket comforting against the strange silence of a visitor.

She feels Harrow fumble for her hand under the sheets and she lets her take it, lets her wrap her little fingers around it.

“Do not away from me,” Harrow whispers. “My empire for a lifetime with you.”

Once more, Gideon is speechless. She kisses the well-worn furrow between Harrow’s eyebrows and closes her eyes.

Come waking, Gideon is alone.


	4. Act IV: Under Our Feet, Ingrain the Pieces We Could Never Find

“We storm the Church.”

“No.”

Judith Deuteros looks up at Gideon, expressionless. “No,” She repeats, slowly, as if rolling unfamiliar syllables around on her tongue. Being met with resistance clearly is not something she was expecting today.

“No,” Gideon says again.

“Why the hell not?”

Camilla is leaning against the door jamb to Deuteros’ office, a frown deep-set into her face. One hand holds a glass of rum, the other resting on the pommel of the knife at her hip. Deuteros is sitting once again in the seat of honour, her treasured mahogany chair behind the spartan desk covered in papers, ledgers, scratched out letters, and a singular bottle of spirit. Gideon’s trapped on the inside corner, arms crossed over her chest. She can feel two sets of eyes boring into her and she shudders a little.

“They didn’t kill us.”

Deuteros lifts an eyebrow. “They could have.”

“But they didn’t. They saved us.”

“If you think that spares them, then maybe they should have,” Judith intones, drumming her fingertips on the wood of the desk. “Do not get me wrong, Gideon. The Cohort is thankful for your service and we are glad to see you alive. But do not think for a second that if you were someone else that night, Camilla would not be with you, nor whoever went with her.”

Gideon rubs her temples. That much is true. “Why continue this? They spared us. Should we not spare them in return? Repay them for their grace?”

Deuueteros snorts. “Grace. The only grace the Nine has is whatever Nonagesimus blathers before supper. If we do not strike back, they sneer at our lack of strength. If not the Nine, then the Triad, desperate for a foothold in this city. If not the Triad, someone else. This does not end with one act of _grace_.”

Gideon’s jaw clenches and tightens, but she has no answer. The silence is stifling, and she feels hot tears prick at the corner of her eyes. There’s no way for her to reason out why without losing everything. The Cohort. Harrow. There is no rational reason in the eyes of the Cohort not to strike back. 

“Perhaps Gideon is not insane,” Camilla says from the doorway, slow and measured.

Deuteros snorts, but Cam chooses to ignore it.

“Maybe we’re focusing on the wrong people. The Nine are our primary rival but we have a mutual enemy rising to power now. It would be prudent for us to take this as an opportunity to remove a third variable, especially if they’ll undoubtedly be seeking revenge for their dead,” She continues, running her finger over the rim of her glass. “The status quo is good for us both. Competition keeps the devil’s drink flowing and we can consolidate power.”

Deuteros shakes her head. “They have made no challenge to us. Charging our pickup was reckless, but not personal. I will not start war on another front if it can be helped.”

Gideon lifts her head. “They have. Challenged us, I mean. Tern attacked me in an alley.”

Deuteros lifts a singular eyebrow in a manner that is more threatening than Gideon could ever think such a simple action could convey. She wants to learn how to do that. “And you didn’t tell me.”

And for good reason, if she wanted to keep her secret with Harrow exactly what it is. A secret. “No, I didn’t.”

“And why on God’s good earth would you not, Gideon? You are a good fighter, but frankly, I doubt if you are a good soldier.”

That one stings.

“No matter, we will deal with that later. What did he do?”

Gideon rolls up her sleeve even further to show the pale while line on sun-darkened skin. “Ambushed me in an alleyway with a knife. I leapt over a wall and ran, but the landing fucked up my knee. Still walking funny.”

Deuteros rubs the corner of her jaw thoughtfully. “Unprovoked?”

“Unprovoked.” She leaves out the part where she was with Harrowhark, what set it all off in the first place, but it doesn’t matter. Naberius Tern drew, unprovoked, on Cohort.

“And you are certain it is him.”

Gideon freezes and Camilla catches the ball before it comes crashing to the floor. “He was at the drop-off point tonight. The Nine called the Triad name.”

Deuteros’ eyes unfocus slightly as she thinks. Strategises. “I will contact the Church.” She pauses, drumming her fingers, then sighs. “Gideon, I grant you immunity that you would answer me this truthfully. Do you have contact with Nonagesimus?”

Gideon swallows and looks a little beyond Deuteros, unable to make eye contact. “Yes.”

Deueteros’ eyes flash with something next to disappointment and Gideon feels her stomach drop. “Very well. Tell her to send a messenger to Dominicus. She knows we’re here, yes? You survived a meeting with her just outside a month and some ago.”

Gideon nods wordlessly.

Deuteros sighs and pours herself a drink. “If we are all alive by the end of this, Gideon, we are going to have a long, _long_ chat. But please, for the love of God, get out of my office. Both of you.”

* * *

“Griddle.”

Gideon is well on her way home when she sees Harrow walking down the street and she picks up her pace a little to walk half a step behind her.

“My lady of eternal night.” She smiles.

Harrow doesn’t respond but doesn’t shake Gideon off either, silently calling Gideon to follow. 

Gideon has no idea where she’s going but she follows, fully trusting. They wind through the streets of Atlantic City and weave up a flight of stairs and back down another, around a corner hard and across the street. There’s a strange street branching into three as they get to the West end of the city and Harrow disappears into the left one, walking for another block to arrive at a door Harrow unlocks, stepping through and leaving it open for Gideon to follow.

It's a small home, Gideon discovers as she closes the door. Despite Harrow’s love of dark, dark, and dark, the place is surprisingly well lit and its walls soft pale colours. Gideon slowly makes her way into the space, looking around the somewhat dusty sitting room and a kitchen she assumes has seen use all of two times in the last year. She follows Harrow down a darkened hallway and steps into her bedroom. It’s much more well-lived in than any other room in this place. A bed is tucked against the wall with a window and there’s a closet (probably entirely of black lace dresses), and a shelf with knickknacks and books.

“So this is home, eh?”

Harrow doesn’t answer, just goes to pull open the curtains a little so a little bit of light from the street filtered by slat shades fills the room and stands by the mirror on the shelf, beginning to take off her jewellery.

Gideon leans against the wall, a little awkward. She watches Harrow take off her earrings, her bracelets, her necklace, and it feels a little… it feels intimate. Vulnerable.

“Hey Harrow? What are we doing here?”

Harrow sets down her necklace and turns to face Gideon. She’s got a look on her face Gideon’s afraid to try to interpret. It’s painfully honest, painfully open. Like last night when Harrow was asleep. Like she’s finally seeing what Harrow looks like without a mask.

Harrow crosses the room in four quick steps and reaches out, hesitating a little before she rests her hand over Gideon’s left chest, feeling the steady ba-bum, ba-bum of her heart.

Gideon stays still, stays soft. Long pale fingers tap gently against her shirt in time with her heart, and she breathes in, breathes out.

Harrow takes half a step forward and presses a kiss right beside her palm, cheek warmed by proximity to Gideon’s skin, and she follows the cut of the shirt with her eyes, up the slope of her neck and Gideon’s strong jaw, up into golden eyes.

Gideon holds her breath, gently moving her arms from against the wall to rest gently across Harrow’s lower back in an embrace. She doesn’t dare speak of fear that she might break this perfect silence that has fallen between them, fragile like glass and yet warm and heavy like a blanket.

“I was afraid...” Harrow whispers, grounding herself in Gideon’s steady pulse, voice barely audible. “When I had heard that you were at the shipment Ortus and Crux were trying to intercept. When I heard that someone had been shot, someone had died. When Ortus and Crux came home safe… I was so scared.”

Gideon closes the distance first this time, her nose bumping gently against Harrow’s as their lips seal together, soft and heartachingly tender. Harrow makes this awful keening noise and rises to the balls of her feet and Gideon craves to hear it again. Her hands press against Harrow’s back, slender and small and rising with every breath she takes. She’s perfect.

“Gideon.” Harrow pulls back and Gideon opens her eyes to look at pink lips, dark eyes, Harrow’s perfect little nose.

She smiles breathlessly. “Yeah?”

Harrow looks like she has words on the tip of her tongue like she’s practised saying them in front of the mirror and Gideon is so endeared, and she wants nothing more than to hear what Harrow has to say. But instead, Harrow just leans forward again to kiss her, the tiniest bit off centre, and Gideon’s heart melts.

Thin fingers move to Gideon’s shirt, undoing the buttons deftly, loosening one by one and then untucking the shirt from her waistband. Together, they pull down the straps of her suspenders and free her from the white cloth around her arms, tossing the shirt to the floor.

Harrow’s lips move to Gideon’s neck. She leaves a bruise there, and Gideon lets her, tilting her head up to impact softly against the wall. She moans, soft and breathy for Harrow. Her fingers find the buttons of Harrow’s dress and undoes them, watching the beautifully patterned fabric fall away from pale skin.

Harrow pulls away for all but a moment to help shrug out of her dress and together they struggle with her bra and girdle corset, giggling at the complicated series of hooks and buttons before those too join the rest of their clothing on the ground.

It strikes Gideon all of a sudden that this is the first time she’s seen Harrow. Not just seen Harrow, but _seen_ her. Bare before her, Harrow is even more bird-like than when she’s shrouded in silk and lace. She’s a thin, wispy thing under it all, and Gideon can practically see the ribs her skin clings on to tightly. Her chest is small, small enough that Gideon can fit her breasts perfectly in her palms when she reaches out, and Harrow makes a sound like a wounded animal that has Gideon swallowing and leaning forward for another kiss.

Getting her pants off is a trivial thing at this point, everything fading into just another step to get more skin on skin, to make herself bare, to offer everything. Somewhere between material tangled at her ankles and giggles between gasps, Gideon’s tipping backwards onto the bed with Harrow pressed closed against her chest. 

Harrow’s light as a bird like this too, legs splayed out and tangled around Gideon’s as she leans and presses giggling kisses to Gideon, getting more cheek and chin than lips, but it’s perfect and warm and soft. 

“Here, let me...”

They arrange themselves so Harrow’s sitting on Gideon’s stomach, one hand’s fingers gently intertwined, and Gideon’s hand resting on her thigh. Gideon takes a moment to admire, eyes tracing the outline of sharply defined hips, of the slender curve of Harrow’s waist, the definition of her clavicle. Harrow’s cheeks flush ever so slightly and she looks away, taking a hand to cover herself just a little.

“You’re beautiful,” Gideon tells her through whispers full of reverence.

Harrow shrugs her bony shoulders. “I’m nothing special to look at.”

Taking their joined hand, Gideon presses a kiss to Harrow’s knuckles with a small smile. Then, pulls out her hand and kisses her fingertips, from thumb to pinkie, and then her palm. Slowly, she sits herself up to lean against an elbow and tilts her head to kiss Harrow’s wrist where her pulse flutters under her lips. She’s never been good with words, always better with action.

Harrow whimpers ever so quietly and Gideon looks to see that her flush has come up high on her cheeks now. She smiles and follows the delicate skin, pressing her lips along the bluish lines of veins that trace up Harrow’s arm, into the crook of her elbow, and up. Her lips drag against Harrow’s shoulder and up the side of her neck, their bodies pulled closer, and Gideon feels rather than hears Harrow’s responding rumble as her tongue brushes against her throat. Up at the soft spot under her jaw, she feels Harrow’s breath hitch.

One kiss to the tip of her chin. One more to the space under her lower lip.

Gideon tries to make Harrow wait for the last one and Harrow, ever impatient, just grabs the back of Gideon’s head to slide their lips together.

Kissing Harrow is like touching open flame. Everything is bright and alive, every moment unpredictable as a dancing, leaping blaze. It’s hot in a way that warms, that burns, that sears, that leaves marks. Kissing Harrow feels like falling from the skies and trusting wings you don’t know exist to pull you into the air. Kissing Harrow feels like living.

Harrow makes the most wonderful of noises when Gideon licks past her lips, brushes her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It’s a soft, keening noise, and Gideon adds it to the list of her favourite sounds. It’s beginning to become quite the collection and she has no plans to stop adding to it.

Harrow bears down on her until Gideon’s leaning back her weight on her elbow again, her hands finding Gideon’s chest and scratching gently under the curve of her breasts. Gideon gasps quietly into Harrow’s mouth. It doesn’t do quite as much for her as other things might, but she certainly won’t turn away Harrow’s blunt nails painting red lines across her skin.

She tilts her head, trailing her kisses down the paper-thin skin of Harrow’s neck. Her hand finds the back of Harrow’s head and cups, nails working bluntly against her scalp. She remembers the feeling of teeth on her own, and she gives Harrow a matching set of bruises that bloom a smarting red, an explosion of capillaries like fireworks. She can feel each draw of breath in the skin under her tongue and she lets herself fall to the hollow of Harrow’s collar and nips.

“Griddle… you tease,” Harrow sighs, gently tugging at short orange hair and leading her to her small breasts.

Gideon, never one to deny Harrow anything she asks for, bows her head and takes a pebbling nipple between her lips, sucking gently. It draws a breathy sigh from Harrow and a tightening of the hand in her hair, so Gideon gives it a little more attention, nibbling to the side of the dusky skin and flicking her tongue to soothe. Her hand kneads gently at the other breast, massaging and tugging in time with her lips, drawing pretty noises from Harrow’s lips. Not that there is a single noise Harrow could make that wouldn’t be perfect.

The other breast brings just as much of a symphony from Harrow’s lips comprised of a thousand sighs and whimpers and groans when Gideon changes sides. But for all that Gideon loves hearing Harrow sing for her, she’s impatient, and guessing by the way Harrow’s started to grind slow and small against her stomach, so is she.

Gideon pulls away from reddened skin to admire her work beginning to bruise over on ghost-white skin. Personally, she thinks she’s done a mighty fine job of painting Harrow’s chest.

Harrow must be looking now too, and she giggles. “What’s this, you really do like my tits that much?”

“They’re incredible,” Gideon sighs delightedly, pressing her face in the valley of Harrow’s breasts. “Stupendous works of a titty nature.”

Harrow laughs, running her fingers through Gideon’s hair. “You’re ridiculous.”

Gideon beams against her skin and kisses Harrow’s sternum.

Harrow wraps thin fingers around Gideon’s wrist and guides it between them to where she’s wet, kissing the side of Gideon’s head in a silent plea. And Gideon, well Gideon’s never been good at saying no to whatever Harrow asks for, so she runs the pads of her fingers gently over soaked folds. Harrow’s wet enough that Gideon’s fingers skate more than slide. The soft cry it draws is more than enough to get Gideon to drift her fingers through again, slower this time.

“Griddle, please-”

Gideon lets her fingers catch at Harrow’s opening before teasing away to her clit. “Hm?”

Harrow still has enough composure to flick Gideon against the side of the head, which is really no good of a reflection of Gideon’s skill. If she had it her way, Harrow should be unable to do anything but drool into her shoulder by now and god does Gideon know Harrow deserves it. Taking it as a challenge, she pushes in a finger, then two, feeling Harrow stretch delightfully over her digits.

Harrow makes the most delightful of pitched, breathy sounds, a hand coming to scratch down the defined muscles of Gideon’s back and Gideon croons.

“Gideon, more.” It’s a demand delivered as best Harrow can in her breathless state, and Gideon complies.

It’s easy to curl her fingers against Harrow’s front wall and milk whimpering little cries out of her, more honest than any word she’s said thus far. It’s even easier to hold bony hips down and tilt the heel of her palm up so Harrow has something to grind her clit on and give Gideon those soul-damning gasps herself.

It’s warm, Gideon’s hand wet enough that every thrust is accompanied by the lewdest of sounds, and Gideon’s fairly certain she’s going to go deaf with Harrow’s ragged breath and broken moans. If kissing Harrow is like touching fire, fucking Harrow is like setting yourself alight and Gideon wants to burn.

It’s not long before the nails scratching at her back are digging nearly painfully now, and Harrow’s beautiful sounds have turned to laboured breaths, barely enough left in her lungs to make a whimper. Gideon feels it coming and turns her cheek to kiss Harrow’s jaw. “Come for me,” she rasps, twisting her hand so she can rub circles over Harrow’s clit.

Harrow breaks beautifully, the long, drawn-out moan of Gideon’s name on her lips as she crumbles and falls, and Gideon holds her, a safe place to land. Harrow slumps against Gideon’s shoulder, eyes closed, lips parted, warm breath dancing across her bruise-painted neck. Her hips are still working small and slow and she makes an adoring sound at the back of her throat, mouthing rather aimlessly at Gideon’s shoulder.

“You doing okay?” Gideon asks.

Harrow just responds with a gentle hum, cheek pressed against Gideon’s collar.

Gideon’s happy to just sit there with her, skin against skin, her hand rubbing big soothing circles against Harrow’s back, for the rest of her life. There’s a sense of comfort and peace in this she hasn’t felt in a long time. Maybe ever. A sense that this is what she wants to be doing tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. What she’s meant to be doing. And then she remembers what she’s actually supposed to be doing.

“Hey Harrow?”

“Mmhm?”

“I was talking to the Cohort-”

“Shhh…” Harrow raises a finger blindly to where she thinks Gideon’s lips are and instead pokes the side of her nose. She giggles. “Whoops. That can wait. Let me catch my breath and I’ll use my mouth on you, then we can talk shop.”

Oh, well if that isn’t exciting. Gideon smiles, big and toothy. Yeah, she could stand to lounge around with Harrow forever, but getting a little help with the gentle throbbing between her legs would be pretty fantastic too. She is human, after all.

Harrow mumbles something soft and pushes herself up off of Gideon’s chest to give her a quick peck on the lips. “Lay back.”

Hell, there’s no way Gideon’s going to say no to that. She crawls backwards to the head of the bed, leaning her back against the wall. Harrow looks like a dream like this, kneeling between her spread knees. Gideon thinks she’s going to die.

And then Harrow lays down, settling with her chin resting on Gideon’s upper thigh. The first brush of Harrow’s lips against the inside of her thigh feels like a bucket of water on Gideon’s face and she’s suddenly awake with a gasp, suddenly alive, thrumming with anticipation. She mumbles something incoherent, hips lifting a tiny bit without thinking. It’s nice. Harrow’s terribly attentive, and the way she laves her tongue at the junction between thigh and cunt gets Gideon squirming. 

Harrow takes her sweet sweet time exploring the expanse of Gideon’s thigh, nipping little biting stinging kisses along the soft skin there. Hands grip at Gideon’s hips tight enough the skin under her thumbs turns a slight pale. Harrow chases her fingers, trailing up the v of Gideon’s hips and it makes her squirm.

“Don’t tease, it tickles,” She pleads.

Harrow makes a sound like she couldn’t care less and Gideon’s pretty sure her soul ascends. Harrow’s hands hold down Gideon’s hips as best she can and Gideon tries, she really tries, to behave and not buck hard enough to break Harrow’s nose. It’s hard though, who thought she’d be ticklish there? She’s learning a hell of a lot under Harrow’s lips.

And if Gideon thought Harrow at her thighs and hips were good, she certainly isn’t prepared for when Harrow finally gets that smart mouth on her clit. Try as she might, there’s no way Gideon can hold her hips down and she bucks up with a broken cry, hands fisting into the sheets.

“Harrow!”

Harrow grins from between her legs and Gideon goes light-headed.

“You can tug on my hair if you want,” she says like it’s the simplest thing on earth, and Gideon’s fairly certain her nose is going to bleed. Harrow leads one hand to raven black hair and Gideon fists her hand in gently, watches Harrow’s eyelids flutter.

It’s easier to handle Harrow’s tongue on her clit again with a hand in her hair grounding her. Still, it pulls an embarrassing noise from Gideon’s throat and she tugs, her thighs tightening around Harrow’s head when Harrow drags her tongue up the length of her.

“H-Harrow, could you-”

Gideon doesn’t even finish the sentence before she can feel fingers sliding into her, robbing her of her voice. Everything is a blur from there. Gideon hears strangled cries and broken moans she realises halfway through, are her own. Her throat feels rough and ragged, breath caught. She can feel her heels hooking onto each other around Harrow’s back instinctively to keep her close, tugging on dark hair to keep her there.

It starts in her toes and races up through her spine, warm and fuzzy and tingling. Gideon can hear blood roaring in her ears and she opens her mouth to say something, anything. If anything comes out at all, it’s an incomprehensible crescendo, just one thought echoing in the chambers of her mind. _Harrow, Harrow, Harrow, Harrow, Harrow-_

Everything explodes around her, and Gideon lets herself fall. 

“I have you, Gideon, I have you.” She hears Harrow say, her whisper like a siren to her ears when she can finally hear again.

When Gideon’s eyes open next, when she’s breathing normally again, Harrow’s watching her with intense, dark eyes, chin resting on her chest. She’s rubbing her thumb over the little hairs that dust Gideon’s belly and Gideon’s suddenly filled with unspeakable fondness.

“Hi,” She smiles dopily.

Harrow looks away, cheeks flushing a little as she smiles. “Have a smoke with me?” She gets up to stand at the window looking out onto the street, finding a pack on the drawer. Gideon grunts quietly and gets up, sticky and the slightest bit sore. She finds her shirt on the floor and shrugs it on, not bothering to do up the buttons, and shuffles to stand beside Harrow as she lights the smoke.

She isn’t sure how she hasn’t noticed it until now, but the light from the streetlamp dapples in a certain way across Harrow’s shoulders the way she lays. Her pale skin glows softly under the yellow light cut through by window blind slats. Her eyes are more gunmetal grey in this light than black, the bow of her lips perfect when she closes them around the cigarette and opens them to let smoke escape. Gideon wants to kiss her.

“You said something. About the Cohort,” Harrow says after a minute or two of silence, eyes fixed on something across the street.

Gideon hums low in her throat, blinking away the fog of orgasm to think. “Deuteros wants to meet you. She wants to negotiate an effort to take down the Triads.”

If Harrow’s surprised, her eyes don’t betray it. She takes a drag from the cigarette and hands it to Gideon, distracted by her thoughts.

She exhales, smoke curling around her upper lip. “Where?”

“Dominicus.” 

Harrow watches her with contemplative eyes and waits. Swallowing her nerves, Gideon inhales, watching the embers glow a fuzzy orange, slightly out of focus. Harrow reaches from the cigarette between her lips and Gideon surrenders it wordlessly.

“… okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Gideon blinks at her a little. “You’re not worried about meeting us on our territory?”

Harrow shrugs. “If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it by now.”

“That’s different. This is-”

“You’ll be there,” Harrow answers without missing a beat.

Gideon doesn’t know what to make of the feeling in her chest. “Okay.”

Harrow falls into silence. It’s comfortable with her like this, Gideon leaning the side of her head on a hand and watching Harrow, smoke drifting gently from kiss-bruised lips, eyes focused far, far away from here.

Somewhere during that next ten minutes of silence, while Harrow lazily finishes the rest of the cigarette, Gideon’s brain catches up to what Harrow said, and she smiles a little ruefully. This game they’re playing feels like walking on a tightrope pulled taut over the city’s skyline. Any wrong move, and it would be a long way down to a very painful death, but the thrill... The thrill of it all keeps her toes on the line and desperately wanting to dance on it, consequences be damned. She shouldn’t care so much. It’s weakness to care so much. It’s betrayal of the Cohort and the trust they’ve put in her to care so much. And yet when Gideon watches the woman who should have been her sworn enemy remove the glowing stub from her lips and breathe out, smoke disappearing into the darkness of their room, she can’t find it in herself to do anything but care.

* * *

Gideon isn’t allowed at the talks.

It’s not for a lack of effort. She argues with Deuteros, then asks Camilla to argue with Deuteros, and then tries to show up anyways, only for Marta to sigh and pick up her shotgun.

“Go home, Nav.”

Gideon’s hands ball into fists beside her. “No. Nonagesimus asked me to be there with her.”

Dyas pumps it, not quite levelling the gun at Gideon, but she snarls in response anyways.

“Gideon.” 

Camilla appears from the back of the storefront, gives Marta a nod, and guides Gideon out with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Cam. Tell her to let me in. Cam!”

Camilla lets the door close behind her and she keeps walking despite Gideon’s protest, pushing her along into the alley.

“What the _fuck_ , Cam?” Gideon shoves Camilla roughly the moment they’re out of public view. “You’re supposed to be helping me!” She hisses.

“And the best way I can help you right now is to keep you firmly out of trouble,” Cam shoots back. “Deuteros thinks you’ve seen and heard too much. You’re a liability to us if you’ve been spending half as much time with Nonagesimus as I think you have. If anyone’s going to be taken by the Triad, it’s going to be you, and Deuteros won’t have you ratting us all out.”

“I won’t!”

Cam shoots her a look at Gideon sighs, looking into the darkness of the alley in frustration.

“Do you trust me, Gideon?”

Gideon refuses to look at her, instead turning her gaze to her shoes. She nods tersely.

“Good.” Cam lifts Gideon’s chin gently with a finger under it. “Then trust me to see you through. Through thick and thin.”

Gideon sighs, unable to stop the small smile from spreading over her lips. It’s wary, but she trusts. She’s always trusted Cam. Gideon stretches out her arms, wrapping them around Cam’s waist when Cam steps into the embrace. “Thanks.”

Gideon feels a pair of lips press against her forehead and she squeezes a little more. Cam’s face pressed against her shoulder is comforting and Gideon nods a little. “I trust you. I trust you,” she says, half for Camilla, half for herself.

Cam steps away and squeezes Gideon’s shoulder. “I’ll do you right.”

“You always have,” Gideon winks and Cam huffs, rolling her eyes.

Gideon sits down on the curb as Cam disappears back inside Dominicus and she waits, lighting a cigarette. The sun moves sluggishly through the sky and more than once, a car comes by, kicking up a cloud of dust that has Gideon sneezing, but still she doesn’t move. She wants to know the moment all is said and done. She wants to be able to run in if gunfire sounds.

She’s halfway through her third cigarette when someone bumps into her and she spins around, affronted. “Hey!”

It’s the same man who ran into her weeks ago, the one who told her to go to Canaan House. “It’s decided. The Ida. Nine day’s time.”

Gideon’s eyes widen and she looks back to Dominicus, searching for Harrow. When she doesn’t see anyone, she turns back to the man. But he’s gone.

* * *

Gideon doesn’t do well sitting on her hands and twiddling her thumbs, waiting. She wants to be doing something more productive, more tangible. For now, her nine days are spent sitting in the main room of the speakeasy cleaning and maintaining their guns. She’s been pointedly barred from Deuteros’ office where the planning is taking place, her only relief that Camilla stands behind the bar sometimes and slides her drinks between oiled firearms.

To make matters worse, it’s been radio silence with Harrow. Since the Dominicus meeting, Gideon’s kept her eyes peeled in hopes that maybe in the shadows, she’d see warm eyes smiling back at her. No such luck. She visits Canaan House four separate times, only to leave alone poorer and drunker than when she came in.

No, instead she feels like when she first joined the Cohort: a foot soldier with everything to prove, wanting nothing more than the approval of her superiors. It’s this desire that has her sitting at the bar the night before their raid stuffing bullets into magazines.

“Careful, you’ll jam your fingers pushing them in that hard.”

Gideon looks up to see Cam slide her a glass of rum. She doesn’t answer, just sets down the case in her hand and starts on a new one.

“You’re sulking.”

“I just want to be part of this.”

“You are.”

Gideon shakes her head. “Cleaning guns isn’t ‘being a part of this’, Cam. I want to be standing there with you when we take on the Triads. I want to be standing there with Deuteros. With _her_.”

“I know. You _are_ ,” Cam says again. “ _She_ doesn’t trust she’ll get her fair share of the land if she lets the Cohort lead everything so she’s going too. She asked explicitly that you be there with her. It’s going to be you, Gideon, she wants you there.”

“Oh.” That’s unexpected. She knows that Harrow trusts her. Enough to let her into her home, enough to lay in bed with her. More than any other Cohort, Gideon can understand. As much her own Nine? Gideon swallows. “How about you?”

Cam taps her arm, still bandaged. “I’m not going to be super helpful up close, but I’m covering everyone’s ass. Please still wear pants though.”

Gideon snorts.

Cam musses her hair from over the bar. “Get some good sleep tonight,” she instructs. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Thanks, mom.” Gideon finishes her drink and waves goodnight to Cam, ascending the stairs to the main floor and walking out into the brisk night air. 

She’s not sleeping tonight. She wouldn’t be able to even if she tried. Instead, she steps out into the chilly night and heads to the docks. They’re abandoned this time of night, leaving them free for Gideon to sit on the edge and dangle her feet over the water. If she points her toes, there’s still about an inch of space left before it’s salty ocean water, and Gideon leans back on her hands, waiting for the sun to rise.

* * *

Gideon is at the Ida just as the sun begins to shine her warming rays on the very peaks of the highest of roofs. She’s piled into the back of a car squished against Camilla, Deuteros and Dyas in the front. There’s a veritable stockpile of weapons under the seats and more in the car behind them, carrying the Nine.

They’re parked out in front of a decently sized building. A year ago, it was an honest hardware store with a home on the top floor run by the sweetest little couple. Somewhere, that had changed and became the Triad’s home base. It’s not too bad of a location for that either. Soft ground under the building could be dug under, and there’s a sizable shed in the back where tools and supplies used to be hung and stacked. Now they’re more likely to find firearms and contraband instead of gardening hoes and fertilizer.

Dyas turns around from the front and slides a magazine into her pistol. It’s nice, handle inlaid with ivory and filigree stamped into the metal. “Deuteros and I are going through the back. Gideon, Harrow is behind us. Take her and the two she brought. You’re going through the front. Camilla, across the street. You got the long gun. It’s going to be a lot of bodies, don’t hesitate to drop them, and don’t run out of caps.”

They spill out of the car, Deuteros and Dyas moving the seats with practised ease to reveal arms that hands reach for methodically. Gideon’s palm finds the comforting grip of a pistol, smooth in her hand, its weight grounding.

“Don’t die,” Deuteros says, pressing a stack of magazines into Gideon’s hand, and she and Dyas are disappearing into the slowly receding shadows across the street. 

Camilla reaches out to squeeze Gideon’s shoulder, other hand cradling a long-barreled rifle. She pulls Gideon in for a tight hug that lasts a beat longer than normal, terribly comforting. “I’ll see you when this is all over. To the end,” she says, and melds into the darkness of the alleys facing the Ida.

“To the end,” Gideon echoes. She puts the magazines into her pockets for safekeeping and checks her pistol, checks the slide mechanism, slides the magazine out and pops it back in, oiled and smooth from her hard work in the past week.

“Griddle.” Gideon turns to see Harrow kneeling under the cover of her vehicle, flanked on either side by the meatheads at the beach. Crux and Ortus. Harrow beckons and Gideon heels.

“It’s good to see you,” Gideon answers genuinely, and she’s surprised to see Harrow smile equally so. Harrow’s face is painted, and it suddenly strikes Gideon that this is the first time she’s seen the Reverend Daughter’s warpaint in person. The visage is that of a skull, terrifying if you were to be on the business of her revolver, but there’s something so terribly Harrow beneath all that paint. Something that tugs like affection on Gideon’s heart.

“You’ll be protecting me tonight?” she teases as if she’s not armed herself. Gideon can see the sleek six-chambered gun Harrow had pointed at her chest what seems like an eternity ago nestled in Harrow’s hands and she grins right back.

“You just stick close to me.” Gideon feels like a superhero saying that, especially when Harrow’s smile has a flash of teeth in it.

Neither Ortus nor Crux attempt anything akin to stealth as they head for the front door, nor are they quiet about busting down the door when Crux takes two steps back and charges forward, shouldering through with the weight of his body. He throws himself behind the door jamb, expecting a hail of bullets to follow, but it’s eerily silent.

“Huh. Okay.” Crux sticks his head in, and seeing no one, waves the rest of them in.

Gideon and Harrow file in as quietly as possible, made infinitely more difficult by Crux and Ortus’ lumbering steps. The inside still looks much like a hardware store, with goods on shelves and hung on walls. Gideon winds around the checkout counter and finds it empty, its shelves even barer of cash. Ah, it was worth a shot.

There’s a flight of stairs up in the back of the shop.

“Upstairs. Crux, Ortus, watch the door. Gideon, we’re going up,” Harrow instructs, cocking the hammer of her revolver and nodding for Gideon to lead the way.

Swallowing, Gideon draws her gun and heads up the stairs. Aiglamene’s voice from basic training echoes in her head. _Use the angles, Nav! Walk on the sides of your feet, you’re so damn loud!_

The upstairs leads to a small sitting area, devoid of life. A quick scan reveals well lived-in couches, a dining table and haphazardly pushed-in chairs, and more doors in the shadows. One opens into an empty kitchen, dirty cups left in the sink. Another leads into a bathroom, towels still damp from a last shower.

She emerges back into the living room and presses her ear against the last door. Everything she’s seen screams that this should be a bedroom. That there should be occupants. That it’s all over when they walk in and put bullets in the bodies lying in bed. It makes Gideon a little queasy, the thought that she’d be putting down sleeping individuals. It’s different when they’re awake and trying to kill her. This seems cold-blooded. Dishonourable.

Harrow walks up and puts her hand on the handle of the door and twists, letting it swing open with the softest of creaks. There are, indeed, two lumps in the bed, vaguely curled in on each other. Hell, if Gideon didn’t know what this was, she could have imagined herself like that, an arm draped across Harrow’s waist under the covers. She shunts the thought immediately. She can’t afford to think like that.

Harrow lifts her revolver at the body on the right facing the window, and Gideon points hers to the larger body on the left. She can see Harrow’s fingers counting down 3, 2, 1. She squeezes the trigger and two holes are punched through the sheets, blood beginning to stain the white sheets. Gideon starts to feel sick.

Harrow seems to have none of the same compunctions and she strides forward to check the bodies while Gideon puts her gun away and surveys the room.

“Oh. Gideon...”

Something moving catches Gideon’s eye and she kneels down to pick up a bit of metal that rolled out from under the bed as Harrow crossed the foot of the bed. It’s familiar, she’s seen it before. Her mind races to try and remember what this is. Army. Training camp. It’s a grenade pin.

“It’s fake. There’s bags of blood-”

Gideon hears the cacophonous crack of a rifle crack and Harrow’s body is tipping backwards. 

She hadn’t even realised she was doing it before she’s leaping across the bed to shove them both out the window behind Harrow’s back. Glass fragments around them and sharp edges slice up her face, and then they’re falling. Plummeting is the worst feeling in the world, only made worse when the room behind them explodes into flame and shrapnel. There’s not enough time to try and slow their fall with the ground approaching so quickly, and Gideon and Harrow hit the pavement a floor below hard.

Gideon’s knee flares once more in intense pain as she lands, tumbling into a groaning heap. Her shirt sleeves are shredded and the skin underneath red and angry with road-rash where she skidded along the road to a stop. Everything hurts and Gideon feels like she’s been hit by a truck. She forces her eyes open. Things are a little out of focus and she pushes herself up on her forearms. Above her, the top half of the building is being consumed in flame. Incendiary grenade. Nasty stuff. She shakes her head. Harrow. She needs to find Harrow. Everything sways when she moves her head, but she can see Harrow slowly picking herself up, cheek scraped bloody and a nasty looking gash on the side of her head, but she looks significantly better off. Harrow points towards the building and Gideon squints.

“Gideon, look out!”

Gideon looks and there are people running towards them from the shed in the back. People with guns and knives. She swears under her breath and scrambles to get her feet under her, still a little woozy.

From behind her, there’s another cracking sound like from earlier, and one of the bodies drops.

She doesn’t need to look back to know what it is. “Thanks, Cam,” she murmurs, rolling the best she can behind cover, Harrow close behind. “You okay?”

“Stupid, stupid…” Harrow hisses, leaning out and firing wildly out. She’s so incredibly hot like this, blood running down her browbone, sweaty and deadly. “They know.”

No kidding. A Triad runs past their hiding place and Gideon puts them down with a shot. Her head is spinning a little less now, but she still feels like a walking bruise. She spares a glance to the flaming Ida and sees Crux and Ortus running out towards the fray, guns ablaze. Now’s as good a time as any to join in. 

Half of the journey towards the shed is diving behind shelter as bullets kick up the ground at Gideon’s feet, the steady drill of gunfire ringing in her ears. Projectiles whizz overhead and Harrow moves like she’s glued to Gideon’s side, peeking out together and rifling off shots, then ducking back and reloading, then moving. The heat as they run by the fire above warms the back of Gideon’s neck and she ducks out of the way of a crumbling section of wooden wall as it crashes down from the storey above. They pass a handful of bodies on the way, grievously injured and ripped apart by Crux and Ortus’ rampage, some only halfway to death’s door. Gideon watches Harrow put them out of their misery, bile rising in her throat.

“Come on, Griddle.” Harrow wraps an arm around Gideon’s and hauls her to her feet, guiding them on. “We have work to do.”

For a second, Gideon genuinely thinks they’re invincible. The adrenaline kickstarted by the grand window exit is still thrumming through her veins, and they haven’t lost anyone yet. In fact, Crux and Ortus have made it past the yard littered with planters of all kinds to the wide-open doors of the shed and are firing indiscriminately, two machines of destruction. Their guns punctuate the night in a rhythmic rat-ata-tat accompanied by the crackling of flame behind them and the sound of gunfire from below a small hatch door by the house leading down into what must be a more secret location. For a moment, Gideon almost thinks she’ll get through this whole thing without shooting anyone.

That is, until Ortus roars, staggering back. His shirt suddenly blooms with red splotchy flowers, and Crux drops his gun. He starts pulling Ortus’ body away from the doors with both arms, shouting for help over the din of answering fire.

A shadow darts out from the shed and Gideon doesn’t even have enough time to raise the barrel of her pistol before Ortus is limp and Crux is standing very still, a blade raised to his throat.

“Now, now, boys. Let’s not be foolish here.” A figure emerges from the shed, smoking gun held in her hand. “We wouldn’t want to lose anyone else now, would we?” She’s shrouded in a pretty yellow dress, not a single stain on it, but she’s cradling her right arm a little closer to her chest like she’s protecting a shoulder injury.

Beside Gideon, Harrow stills. “Ianthe,” she hisses, spat out like poison.

“Oh hello, Harrowhark.” Ianthe waves her fingers a little in greeting. “Is this big man your friend? Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t have friends, do you?”

Gideon can hear Harrow’s teeth grinding from here and she spares her a glance. The side of Harrow’s face is drenched with blood from the cut at her scalp now, the horrifying visage of an angel of death.

Ianthe sighs pitifully. “Even if you did have friends, you’re not going to have any more after this. You sent them here to die.” She lifts the revolver and cocks her head. “Pity. He might have been good for the Triads. Too bad he shot me.”

Gideon winces at the crack of the gun, at the explosion of blood and brain. Crux’s body falls to the ground, revealing Naberius Tern behind him letting the body slump from his grasp, face flecked red with blood.

“We meet again, lovebirds,” he says, enunciating all his consonants in a way that does nothing but irritate.

“Did you find the present in the bedroom, loves? Maybe not what you were hoping for.” Ianthe tsks. “That’s okay, I have more presents for you.”

Gideon grimaces. “Can you stop being cryptic? I’m actually stupid, you really have to spell it out for me.”

“It means--” Ianthe lifts up the gun towards them next and Gideon and Harrow spring in opposite directions behind cover as she begins to fire-- “fucking die already!”

Escaping from the deadly projectiles, Gideon throws herself behind a planter. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of an impossibly fast Naberius Tern trying to close towards Harrow and she fires wildly at him from behind cover. The first two bullets fly harmlessly a mile over his head but the next has him backpedalling as it chews up the dirt at his feet. She squeezes the trigger until it clicks emptily in her hand, and she feels around for another magazine. 

She’s doing a half-decent job at keeping him at bay while Harrow trades shots with Ianthe, until she reaches for another magazine and finds nothing. Fuck! In the pause, Tern pokes his head out, and at the lack of returning fire, draws his knife and runs for Harrowhark.

Gideon can’t think, everything is just loud and tunnel-vision. She grabs the hot barrel and she flings it towards his head in a desperate attempt to get him away from her. No such luck. The gun does little more than sear Gideon’s palm and anger Tern, who is now circling around Harrow’s cover where she can’t see. No time to think, barely any time to act. Her fingers grasp around her own knife and feet dig into blood-wet grass. Ianthe is still firing, but it’s now or never.

Gideon mutters a prayer she learned somewhere, god knows where, and her feet are moving, carrying her across the yard. Halfway across, something punches into her thigh and she vaguely registers that she’s been shot. It burns and her knee buckles. No time to worry anymore. She can hear Harrow shouting her name in confusion. She ignores that too. 

Gideon’s eyes narrow and putting her head down, she throws herself forward over Harrow’s body, shoulder first, into Naberius Tern’s head coming around the corner.

The crunch is horrible, and the tumbling over sets her leg on fire. The fall rips open the half-sealed wounds from her fall from the building earlier and Gideon cries out in pain. Even worse is Tern rolling up onto his feet with blade in hand, stabbing down at her while Harrow is distracted by Ianthe firing again.

Gideon yanks her head out of the way just in time to direct the point of the curved knife into the grass _beside_ her shoulder rather than through her head, and she kicks her feet up into his chest. The knife slashes wildly as Tern backs away and Gideon hisses, feeling it slice into her upper arm.

Gideon tries to stand but her leg gives out from under her immediately, putting her on her knees. Suboptimal. Tern approaches, gripping his knife like an ice-pick and Gideon staggers backwards on all fours. Her hand sinks into something soft – dirt – and she grabs a handful of it, throwing it at Tern’s face when he gets close enough. “Fuck. Off,” she hisses, ducking when she hears Ianthe’s gun discharge again, answered by another shot from Harrow.

Tern shakes the dirt off, giving Gideon enough time to drag herself up onto her knees and recklessly slash at him as she grabs his ankle and yanks. Tern’s balance gives and he comes crashing down, and suddenly they’re grappling, blades lost in a tangle of limbs and wild fists. 

If there is anything that Tern is, it is the perfect fighter. Every hook is clean and sinks into her side in a way that makes her want to keel over and retch, his eyes alight in undisguised fury. He’s well trained, well practised. Still, he’s not a brawler. Gideon is. She pulls her head back and smacks it straight into his nose, hearing it crunch, feeling it crack and give under her forehead. At the same time, there’s a _horrible_ pain shooting up her leg and she screams. There are fingers digging into the gunshot wound in her thigh and she buckles, crumpling to the side in pure agony.

From there, it’s all over. Tern gets on top and his knuckles find her temple once, twice, three times. There’s a wretched ringing in her head and Gideon’s vision is swimming, horribly out of focus. She can see Tern as a blurry shade on top of her, can feel calloused hands wrap around her neck and squeeze. She can’t breathe. Something snaps in her and she claws wildly, no technique, no finesse, pure survival. She feels blood gout from under her nails but it doesn’t free the pressure on her throat or the horrible sensation of not being able to breathe. It strikes her then, that she’s dying.

She hopes Harrow gets out of here alive. Her vision swims, going dark around the edges, and her arms feel weak. She can’t hear right anymore, everything is muffled and ringing. _Harrow. Go. While you still can I-_

And then suddenly, the hands are brutally ripped off her neck and Gideon’s gasping for air, sputtering gracelessly as she turns to her side and heaves in desperate gulps. Out of the corner of her slowly returning vision, she sees what must be Tern staggering up, and behind him, rolling out her injured arm from the vicious tackle that knocked him clean off Gideon, is Camilla Hect. 

Camilla, the hatred of a thousand suns in her eyes, draws two long-bladed knives tucked into the back of her belt, and she charges. There’s a brilliant clash as Camilla strikes with rage, a hurricane of steel hammering against Tern’s freshly-scavenged blade. The open blaze of a burning building backlight the two, outlining them in an angry red. For a moment it looks like Tern’s standing his ground, but Gideon knows better than anyone that this is his fight to lose. There’s spittle flying past Camilla’s gritted teeth and lip curled in disdain, eyes flashing something dangerous, something primal, as she hammers strike after strike down on him, a rain of perfect fury. Gideon can see the lag in Camilla’s right arm, the effort it takes for her to draw back for another blow. There’s red staining out from under the bandages as every explosive action tears at the healing wound, but even fighting with only an arm and a half, Camilla is unstoppable.

As good as Tern gives, it’s not enough, not to counter her for this long, certainly not enough to get in a significant strike of his own. He goes down with a howl of pain as Camilla slices his arms to ribbons and kicks him firmly in the chest to send him tumbling ass-over-teakettle. There’s no quarter given - Camilla simply chases him down, kicking him in the face when he tries to get up, and leaps to bury both blades with finality into his chest. 

There’s more gunfire now, and shouting. Familiar voices. Gideon turns her head to try and see, rolling back onto her back and tries to sit up. Everything is still horrible and spotty, and the pain in her leg is immense, but she’s aware enough to see that there’s red emerging from a door behind and under the house. Deuteros and Dyas. They’re firing into the shed, positioning effortless like a well-oiled machine.

“Gideon. Get up, Gideon.”

Camilla shakes her shoulder with a bloodied hand and Gideon blinks as her face comes into view.

“You were taking too long. Getting sloppy, Nav.”

“Mmh,” Gideon manages. Her whole body hurts, her leg a mangled mess. She props herself up on an elbow, tries to survey the space around her. Everything is painted red with blood and black with soot. She tries to sniffle away the faintly falling ash and hisses. Tern must have broken her nose too. Everything smells like copper and blood and she’s woozy. She can hear the distant wail of a firetruck’s mechanical siren as the fire continues to crackle and burn away at the Ida, and now that she’s concentrating, she notices the gunfire has stopped too. God, her head hurts.

“It’s done, Gideon, they’re...” Camilla’s lips keep moving but Gideon doesn’t hear anything anymore. Her elbow gives and she falls back into the grass. A quick nap. She’ll just take a quick nap.

Gideon Nav closes her eyes.


	5. Act V: Sometimes They Cut Us but We Never Mind

When Gideon wakes next, she’s laying on a table in the Dominicus. It’s definitely Dominicus, no other speakeasy smells like this. Smells like home. She opens her eyes and groans. Her head throbs like a bitch and everything hurts.

“She wakes.” Gideon cranes her neck, wincing. Camilla’s sitting on a chair to her side with her elbows on her knees. There’s a weary look in her eyes and her voice has a tired creak to it. “We were worried you might just sleep forever.”

Gideon opens her mouth and it feels like she’s having nine hangovers at once. “H-Harrow,” she croaks.

Camilla nods towards Deuteros’ office as she reaches for a glass of water to give to Gideon. “They’re talking terms. You should rest.”

Gideon shakes her head and her vision swims, tearing a groan out of her. “Harrow,” she grunts again, struggling up onto her elbows.

“Woah, woah! Take it easy.” Camilla’s out of her seat and helping Gideon sit up. Together they get Gideon’s aching body off the table. Gideon cries out in pain when she puts weight on her bandaged leg and grabs for Camilla’s body to steady herself.

“Come, come…” Camilla slips under Gideon’s arm and together they hobble to Deuteros’ office, opening the door.

“-for the city.”

Deuteros is sitting behind her desk, Harrow sitting opposite to her, Dyas standing at the end of the table. Dyas’ left arm is bandaged and in a sling and Deuteros’ nose has been reset, if the swelling and remnants of dried blood down her face are anything to go by. To Gideon’s relief, Harrow looks more or less unscathed save the white bandaging that covers the side of her head. Hm. White looks strange on her. None of them make overt note of the entrance.

Nonagesimus shakes her head. “That’s no guarantee of the future beyond that. If we were able to work together this time, there is no reason why we can’t parse out a plan that has all of us walking away from later encounters alive from here on out. I want guarantees for our relationship beyond this.”

There’s a slow blink. “I have no intention of doubling the body count, Nonagesimus. Is it not enough that we work together and let each other walk free?”

Nonagesimus shakes her head again, the slightest frustrated frown on her brow. Gideon recognises it as the same one from the night in the car. The night Harrow bandaged her arm after she had been cut. “I want it in writing. I want it in blood. I want to put your good name, Judith Deuteros, on this damn pact that binds our cooperation. I’m tired of losing good men to petty squabbles with you, and I’m sure you are too. There will be no annexation, no takeovers. You will function on one side of the city and we will function on the other, and we will not spill blood.”

Deuteros squints, wincing when it moves her broken nose. “There is no way to equitably split the city without cutting off dock and population access the way things are right now. We will not give up our current assets.”

“Then the Nine will find a new dock to move liquor in from.” Nongesimus shrugs, and Gideon’s eyes widen. This is a gracious offer. So gracious Harrow’s shooting herself in the foot and the hand all in one go. “We’ll find new docks. The pebble beach is yours to have, I won’t send people to hassle you there anymore. In return, do not come to our new drop-off location when we find one, and do not try to stir things up.”

Deuteros clicks her tongue thoughtfully. “Everything south of the West Jersey tracks and Madison Avenue to become yours.”

It’s halfway down the city exactly, a fair division by all means. But Nonagesimus shakes her head. “South from Madison to Atlantic will become neutral territory. You lose none of your land and benefits us both to have shared space. Places where we can mingle freely. If someone tries to take land from us, it will be there. I need your oath to aid in its defence.”

“I don’t understand,” Deuteros says. “At no point have you pressed for more than a future for your syndicate. No new land, no new power, no benefits. You have given in to demand after demand, and freely given without us asking. What game are you playing, Nonagesimus?”

“I’m tired of playing,” Harrowhark says frankly. “I’m tired of trying to live up to what 200 people have died over my lifetime alone to maintain. I have good people under my employ, and I will not subject them to the loss of everything they’ve ever worked for by simply handing over all my land. But mark my word, I won’t send them to die in a pointless war anymore.”

Deuteros grimaces a little and looks to Dyas, then looks to Gideon. Her eyes flicker over their injuries and she concedes. “Okay. Okay. Take Atlantic, we’ll surrender the street a block north of Madison to this treaty ground to balance this out. You have yourself a deal, Nonagesimus.” She stands with some effort, reaching a hand across the table.

Harrow rises to her feet and clasps Deuteros’ hand in hers. “Please, call me Harrowhark.”

Never in her life did Gideon think she would see the day Cohort would shake the Nine’s hand, would cede land to them, would agree to a truce. Cooperation looks good on them.

Deuteros turns to Gideon and Camilla, a small wary smile on her lips. “Well done, you two. Hect. Nice knife work.”

“Always, Captain.”

She nods to them, and then to Harrowhark. “I trust you’ll all find your way home safely? We could all use a good night’s rest.”

Camilla nods. “I’ll make sure Gideon gets home alright.”

Gideon catches Harrow’s eye and she smiles. “Actually, Cam… I think, I think I’m going to stick around a little.” 

Camilla follows her eye and when she sees who Gideon’s looking at, Cam chuckles. “Okay, sure.” 

Camilla eases them forward and holds Gideon up so she and Harrow can switch places.

Gideon leans on Harrow’s frame, nodding her thanks when Cam’s hands steady her. Harrow’s arm wraps around her waist as Cam’s hands release from her shoulders, Gideon solid on her feet.

“Alright.” Cam puts her hands in her pockets with an expression Gideon can’t quite place, but it reminds her of a storyteller at the end of a particularly good chapter. “Goodnight, Gideon. Harrow. Deuteros. Dyas.” She gives them all a nod at the sounds of their names, some stiffer than others, straightens out the front of her shirt, and heads towards the door.

Gideon watches as she heads out, suddenly struck by a thought. For what feels like an eternity, it’s just been her and Cam. Just the two of them connecting by chance and deciding that they were going to have each other’s backs. To the end. She owes Cam everything. Her job, her love, her life.

Just as Camilla is about to open the door, Gideon calls out: “Hey Cam!”

Cam stops and turns to look at Gideon over her shoulder.

Gideon smiles appreciatively at the face of her saviour, her best friend. “Thank you. For everything.” There are no other words. Nothing that could ever aptly say how much she appreciates everything Cam has ever done for her and will ever do. She can only hope that she can give even a fraction in return.

Cam nods back at her, the ever-comforting smirk Gideon has come to rely so much on gracing her lips. And then she’s gone.

Gideon just stands there, the same smirk mirrored on her own lips, content to be in silence for a while.

“You want to go outside?” Harrow asks after a brief period of silence.

When Gideon turns to look at her, Harrow has the same contemplative look as Cam did. She nods, and together they hobble off up the stairs and out through the alleys. “To the docks, maybe?”

Harrow obliges, leading them down creaking wood planks and barnacle-encrusted posts. Gideon leans on her as she’s lowered to sit on the edge, legs swinging over the pier. She leans back onto one hand, the other searching her pockets. Much to her delight, she finds a half-finished pack of smokes. It’s a little crushed from the fight, but when she pops it open, there are still a handful of serviceable cigarettes in there.

Harrow sits down beside her, half a hand’s length away on Gideon’s good side, and Gideon holds the tin out for her.

“Want one?”

Harrow’s brow furrows for a moment in thought, like she’s considering it, before she shakes her head. “No, thanks.”

Gideon nods and looks into the tin before smiling ruefully and putting it away.

Harrow kicks her feet out, chewing at her bottom lip, and Gideon waits for her to say whatever’s on her mind. She doesn’t mind it. It’s nice, just sitting here quietly while the mugginess of the night 

“So.”

“So,” Gideon repeats, staring off into the ocean’s horizon. There’s the far-off silhouette of a gull circling around back to land, the sounds of three more joining in chorus as they rise to join it in the skies.

They fall into that wonderful silence once more. The sun is now at the peak of the morning, Gideon’s night, its rays warming the wood under their fingers as the city’s gears grind back to life, turning it from a gangster’s paradise to just another warm and sunny New Jersey day.

Gideon feels Harrow shuffle a little closer so they’re pressed side to side, a head leaning on her shoulder. She turns her head so that her nose presses against Harrow’s raven hair and she breathes in the smell. It smells like Harrow. Okay, there’s also the coppery tang of blood and the smoke from an exploded building, but still. Harrow.

“I want to do this right,” Harrow says, breaking the silence.

Gideon smiles, dopy. “Nothing about this is normal, Harrow. Your first words to me were part of a death threat, the first time you fucked me was in the back of an alley after you threatened me with my blade, and our first date was interrupted by a guy with a knife, a need for vengeance, and a breath like you wouldn’t believe.”

Harrow snorts. “You’re so stupid.”

“I think I’m pretty smart, actually., I decided to stick around with you.”

Harrow pulls her head back so she can look at Gideon and Gideon lets her, honest with her soul bared.

Eventually though, the honest gets too much, even for Gideon, and a slow smile curls up along one side of her lips. “You owe me four shirts,” Gideon whispers, feeling just the slightest bit shy under Harrow’s eyes.

“What will I ever do with you, Nav?”

Gideon grins, off-kilter and goofy. “I don’t know, what will you do?”

Harrow leans in and presses their lips together.


	6. Epilogue

It goes like this. Gideon’s place is better furnished than Harrow’s and conveniently in the syndicates’ shared territory, so Harrow starts spending more time there. First, it’s just for sex, and that becomes meals and sex. After that comes staying for the night and then breakfast in the morning, and then they’ve spent a whole day together without even noticing.

It goes like this. The first night is hard. Gideon sprawls out in her sleep and Harrow steals the sheets and Harrow kicks Gideon’s healing gunshot wound and they rearrange themselves six times over before either of them falls asleep. Gideon wakes up to an empty bed in the morning and her heart cracks in half, but when she wanders into the kitchen, Harrow is there making her coffee as an apology.

It goes like this. They sit at the kitchen table one day with dirty dishes left in the sink and Gideon holds Harrow’s hands in her and she talks. She tells Harrow about her childhood, about her dreams to join the army, and how she found the Cohort. She tells Harrow about her hopes and dreams and she tells Harrow how she fits into that picture.

And in return, Harrow repays the favour with her own truths over time. She doesn’t spill them like Gideon does, a fountain of accounts that pour out one after another. Instead, she hands them out in little nuggets interspersed with soft words and softer silences, and Gideon learns to give her the space to tell her stories when they come, cradling them like precious gifts. Sometimes Harrow will pause halfway through saying something with a little suspicious squint.

“You’re looking at me funny.”

And Gideon will duck her head with a little bashful smile, only to look back up with that soft grin and nod for her to continue. And when Harrow does, Gideon can’t help this warm fuzzy feeling spreading from her chest out to the ends of her fingers and toes. It’s her favourite feeling.

It goes like this. Eventually, they each settle onto “their” side of the bed and it doesn’t matter where they start off, in the morning Gideon has one arm thrown over Harrow’s waist and the other tucked under her own head, and Harrow’s holding onto Gideon’s arm over her stomach like a teddy bear. They alternate who wakes up first but neither leaves the bed until the other has roused, savouring the sleepy blinks and sleepier morning brushes of kisses on cheeks, noses, foreheads, lips.

Gideon’s favourite kind of mornings are the ones where she wakes first. The ones where sees Harrow’s face, brow soft and free of the creasing frown she always has them set in when she’s awake, always calculating, always ready. In her sleep, she’s got a certain peacefulness written in the way her cheek smushes against the pillow and her mouth hangs the tiniest bit open. Gideon’s stomach always fills with nervous anticipation when Harrow begins to stir, coming from the molasses slowness of rest into wakefulness, and the first thing Harrow sees are her eyes.

“Good morning,” Harrow will croak all soft and raspy, and Gideon will kiss her softly and repeat the greeting.

It goes like this. Harrow takes Gideon to the tailor and stands there watching while Gideon is measured, while pins hold new fabric in place, while the tailor hums quietly as he works. Harrow insists on helping Gideon dress when she has to go to work. She stands there in front of her and buttons up the shirt from bottom to top, flattening out the creases with her fingertips. She adjusts the collar, tucks the ends into Gideon’s pants, and takes the newsboy cap to put it snugly over fiery hair. Gideon has to bend down a little for the last one, and Harrow always presses a kiss to her forehead as she does.

“You look good. Handsome,” Harrow will say, and Gideon will feel her cheeks flush.

“I always do when you dress me,” she’ll respond. Harrow will roll her eyes and remind her to head off before she’s late, horribly domestic.

“Come back to me.”

“I always will.”

It goes like this. On the nights Harrow leaves for the Nine, Gideon makes a hot meal to the best of her ability to welcome Harrow back home with, and leaves silence for Harrow to tell her stories when she wants to, and just tangle their ankles together under the table when she doesn’t. Regardless, they’ll finish dinner and do the dishes together, before preparing for bed and they intertwine their fingers together as they lay in darkness. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t. Someone will say goodnight, and the other echoes it, and they let silence fill the room as they drift off to sleep, another day behind them.

It goes like this. Eventually, Harrow spends so much time at Gideon’s it doesn’t make sense for her clothes to be at her old place, so it slowly begins to migrate. It’s slow so they don’t notice it until Gideon makes an offhand comment about how Harrow’s basically living here now.

“You don’t seem to be complaining,” Harrow says, not taking her eyes off the eggs she’s cooking.

And Gideon will be sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging her bare feet, and she’ll shrug. “Worse things could happen.” She’ll smile when Harrow snorts and hands her a plate, and she’ll pull Harrow in for a quick kiss when she goes to put the dishes away.

It goes like this, and so it goes. Just two people learning to coexist in this space, learning to love and be loved in return, learning what it means to have a home.

“I don’t have to go in to Dominicus tomorrow,” Gideon says one night, hands in warm sudsy water as she washes the last of their dishes. “Deuteros is going to try to put the new kid in and see how she does.” She hands Harrow the last plate.

“The horrible teen you keep talking about?” Harrow dries it off and places it neatly back in place in the cabinet.

Gideon nods. “Her name starts with a J, I think. Or Mary something?” She shrugs and lets the remaining water run out of the basin down the drain. There’s a kitchen towel to the side she uses to dry her hands and she folds it neatly beside the sink.

“Is there a reason you’re telling me this?” Harrow asks, pushing herself off the sink and sidling up behind Gideon, wrapping her arms around Gideon’s waist. “A reason that perhaps will keep you up late, so you have to take advantage of now?”

Gideon shrugs a little shamelessly. “What if the answer is yes?”

Harrow rises up on her tip-toes and kisses the back of Gideon’s neck. “Then you’re wearing entirely too many clothes right now.” One of her hands move to slide up the ropey muscles of Gideon’s forearm and up to her elbow where her sleeve is cuffed, slipping her thumb under the material to rub at the base of her upper arm. It’s one of her old shirts, worn soft over time, fraying just the slightest at the collar where Harrow likes to tug.

“Mm-hmm, Harrow,” Gideon breathes in deep and exhales. “Harrow, wait.”

Harrow stills her movements and steps away. “I’m sorry. Are you alright? What is it?”

Gideon turns in Harrow’s arms and drops a kiss to the top of her head. “Yeah, yeah. I just… I just wanted to ask you something.” She takes one of Harrow’s hands in hers and nods towards the bedroom, silently asking if she’d lead the way.

Harrow nods, and keeps hold of Gideon’s hand as she walks, Gideon half a step behind her. It’s a comforting place to be; their footfalls match perfectly down the hall, always just a reach away.

When they reach the bedroom, Gideon steps gently to the side and makes her way to the closet, back facing Harrow. Up above the little shelf of her folded shirts is the well-loved leather of her knife sheath, and she brings it down. Her hand closes reflexively along the handle, the weight comforting in her hand. She turns the knife over in her hand and unsheathes it, catching the slightest reflection of auburn hair in the steel before sliding it back in. Swallowing, she turns around with the knife in her hand and she looks up to meet Harrow’s eyes. She extends her hand, offering it to Harrow handle-first.

Harrow’s eyes settle on the sheath, and then come up to Gideon’s face, and then back to the knife. “You want… you want me to…” She fades off into nothing, brows furrowing the same way they always do when she’s thinking.

Gideon looks at the leather in her hands and swallows. Nods. “I… yes.” She looks up and finds Harrow’s face unreadable. “I mean, only if you want. I know it’s… it’s a lot, I know. We don’t have to unless you also want...“

Harrow steps forward as Gideon’s speaking and she runs her finger over the smooth leather from the start of the handle to where it tapers at the tip. Slowly, both hands pick up the knife out of Gideon’s hand and slides it out of its sheath, holding it up for inspection.

Gideon swallows.

“What did you want me to do with this again?” Harrow asks, placing the blade against the back of her forearm and skimming it over skin. It takes the hairs off of her arm effortlessly, razor-sharp.

Gideon makes a choked little noise. “I- I mean, I think you know what I-“

“Oh _Grid-dle_ ,” Harrow looks up at her through a little pout. “Of _course,_ I know what you want. I just want to hear you say it.”

“Uh, yeah, okay, yeah.” A flush spreads over Gideon’s cheeks and she looks away. Harrow’s gaze is just a little too intense, a little too charged. She blinks, trying to regain the little bit of composure she has.

“Don’t be a baby, Griddle.” Harrow sheathes the knife again in a single fluid motion and she takes Gideon’s wrist, leading her to the center of the room. She pulls out a chair from the table and she spins it out, pushing Gideon down to sit in it, spine flush with the back. “You can tell me anything.”

Gideon suddenly finds that her mouth has gone dry and she licks her lips. “I, uh.” She chuckles a little, suddenly bereft of words. Harrow looks so good like this, standing over her, sheath held carefully between manicured fingers.

“Not so talkative now, Gideon?” Harrow puts a hand on Gideon’s shoulder and swings herself to sit straddling Gideon’s lap. “Pity. I like hearing you talk.” She breaks her little act to give Gideon a quick kiss. “This okay?”

Gideon nods. Oh, this is _more_ than okay.

Harrow smiles at her and it’s oddly sweet. “I’m serious though.” She falls back into the voice she was using earlier, the one with just the slightest hint of steel behind it. “Can I hear you say it?” Her arms come around Gideon’s shoulders to join behind her neck, drawing their faces close to press their foreheads together.

“I, uh,” Gideon’s eyes are drawn to the perfect bow of Harrow’s lips hovering right in front of her, and she licks her lips again. Her trousers are starting to feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, her underwear wet and sticking. “I’d like it if you used the knife on me again. Like that time in the alley.”

“Mm-hmm?” Harrow turns to kiss the corner of Gideon’s lips, trailing them down to the strong line of her jaw. “What else?”

Gideon closes her eyes and tilts her chin up for Harrow. “Uh, well, I’ve… I’ve got rope in the closet too. It’d be, it’d be nice, you know? If you tied me to the chair maybe. Tied me up and had your sweet, sweet way with me.” She stutters towards the ceiling. She can feel Harrow’s teeth marking up along her jaw and she groans.

“I was hoping you’d bring that up eventually,” Harrow says, matter-of-factly, and Gideon shivers.

“You knew?”

“We share a closet, silly.” Harrow breaks character again for a moment, only to slip back in with a biting kiss just under Gideon’s ear. 

It coaxes a drawn-out moan from Gideon’s chapped lips and her hands reach for Harrow’s hips.

“Nuh-uh.” Harrow bats them aside, pulling away. “No touching.”

Gideon makes a soft disappointed noise, and another louder one when Harrow slides off her lap entirely.

“Oh relax, I’m not going anywhere,” Harrow promises with a kiss to the nose. “Let me get you your rope.”

Oh, now _that’s_ very exciting. Gideon spends a moment appreciating the way Harrow’s dress makes her ass look and she licks her lips again. Who can blame her, a simple woman with simple tastes and an excellent view? 

When Harrow does come back, it’s with a heavy length of tightly braided cotton rope coiled around her hands. “Hands on the chair posts,” Harrow commands, and Gideon obeys. 

She feels for the back of the chair and grips the bottom of it where it joins to the seat, letting Harrow arrange her until her forearms are parallel to the backing. It’s less scratchy than Gideon was worried it might be. The rope slowly wraps up around her forearm two inches above the wrist and the post of the chair. It winds up her arm, stopping short of her elbow. Gideon flexes her arm. It has just enough give that she can clench her fists but little more. She moves her arms more, trying to push the boundaries a little.

“Stop fidgeting,” Harrow tsks, finishing a knot. “Is this comfortable?”

She can wiggle her fingers and rotate her wrists freely, so she nods.

“Tell me if they start to tingle,” Harrow instructs, starting on the other arm.

Gideon wiggles her toes a little, closing her eyes and breathing in and out through her nose, slow and deliberate. Every so often, Harrow’s nails scratch gently against her arm and her intake is a little sharper, followed by a chuckle from both of them. She already feels a little more on edge, something in the back of her head standing at attention. There’s a certain thrill to remembering their first encounters, the intensity in Harrow’s eyes and the way her body _reacted,_ and recreating a part of that here in the safety of their own home.

And then Harrow’s not at her side anymore. Gideon’s eyes open, turning her head to watch, and instead she feels a hand turn her chin back gently.

“So curious,” Harrow says as she comes around to carefully arrange herself back on Gideon’s lap. “Do you trust me?”

She trusts Harrow. That’s not even a question; she trusts her with life, with her body, with her soul. “With everything.”

“Then trust that when you say ‘wait’, I’ll wait. And when you say ‘stop’, I will stop. And I will trust that if you need either of those things, you will demand it. Understood?”

“I understand.” Gideon’s eyes close as she feels hands brush through her hair. They card through from root to end, nails scratching gently into her scalp. She whimpers quietly, leaning into the touch and breathes in the smell of Harrow so close to her.

Harrow’s hand turns into a fist and tugs at the roots to pull Gideon’s head back and a groan from her lips. She pulls the sheath away from the blade by her teeth and tosses the leather to the side, watching Gideon shiver. 

“ _Gideon_.”

“Yes,” Gideon answers, throat tight. She recognizes this voice. How could she forget it? It’s got all the coyness and confidence as the day in the alley, and the commanding quality that sends a shiver up her spine. She feels steel touching her clavicle now. It’s the flat of the blade, but the cold makes her breath hitch. Her fingers wrap tightly around the chair posts in anticipation.

“Open your eyes.”

Gideon’s eyelids flicker open to meet Harrow’s eyes, and she swallows. Harrow’s eyes are so dark, so intense. Harrow’s got the most devious smile on her lips too, something that could only ever spell trouble. Gideon squirms a little under the attention, fighting the urge to look away. Her heart hammers in her chest and she can feel the blade moving with the rise and fall of her chest.

Harrow hooks her finger into the collar of Gideon’s buttoned shirt playfully. “You know, I’ve been wondering. What about you drew me to you? What had the Reverend Daughter coming back like I was addicted? I hadn’t intended to meet you again after our first little run-in, and yet here we are. Care to tell me what?” The sharp side of the blade cuts into the fabric of Gideon’s shirt and slides through, cutting the material apart to open up the first three inches of the shirt.

Gideon smiles a little, bemused. Two can play at this game. She shrugs as best she can, a slow cocksure look settling over her face. “Must be the charm. Couldn’t tell you, really. Apparently, the Reverend Daughter’s just another one of those girls tripping over their feet to be with me, what can I say?”

Harrow purses her lips, amused. “Only if rumours are to be believed. Lots of rumours go around about you, you know. A hundred push-ups a day, is that true?” The blade cuts down to the bottom of Gideon’s sternum.

Gideon breathes deep, trying to control her racing pulse. “Yeah,” she breathes, “that’s true. You can see for yourself if that’s what you want. You’ve got the knife, sweetheart.”

Harrow’s eyes flash with something dangerous and presses the tip against Gideon’s skin. “Ma’am, or don’t refer to me at all.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The tip pulls away but rather continuing to cut, Harrow finishes the rest of the buttons with her fingers and sets down the knife to splay her fingers over Gideon’s stomach. “And the hundred sit-ups too, hm?” She rubs her thumb just under Gideon’s rib, tracing the line of muscle down to her hips.

Gideon bites her lip, willing her hips not to lift. “I couldn’t lie to someone as pretty as you, ma’am.”

“Smooth talker.” Harrow smiles and slides her hands up to slip under the shoulders of Gideon’s opened shirt and pushes it back until it catches on cotton rope. She reaches for the knife again and tucks the tip under the breast bindings that wrap around Gideon’s chest. Slowly, she flicks the knife up, cutting it away inch by inch.

Gideon can’t bring herself to watch the knife work. There’s a nervousness she can’t quite abate so instead she fixes her eyes on the furrow of Harrow’s brow. It’s the one of concentration this time, and it strikes Gideon all of the sudden how careful Harrow is being, how controlled her actions are. Her heart flutters. Except suddenly Harrow is looking to meet her eyes as she cuts the last of her chest wraps open to slip off into strips of fabric on the chair. Gideon whimpers. Harrow grins, tossing the knife to the side to get both hands on Gideon’s breasts and Gideon’s arching her back up into the touch.

“So is it just your body then? Or is it something more?” Harrow muses aloud. “Something that had me coming back over and over like she couldn’t get enough.” Her thumbs run over Gideon’s nipples, drawing a groan.

“You- you could always find out for yourself,” Gideon gasps, shifting her hips. Her pants are just _uncomfortable_ now and she wants out of them.

Harrow hums and dips her head to press a nipping kiss to Gideon’s chest. “Maybe I will.” Her fingers flip open Gideon’s belt and threads it free of the belt loops. “There _is_ one more thing I want to know, Griddle.”

“Mm-hmm?” Gideon lifts her hips when Harrow taps on them, groaning in soft relief when her pants and underwear both come off.

“The night after our little alley escapades, I couldn’t stop thinking about your voice,” Harrow says, pulling Gideon’s pants down to her ankles and kneeling between her legs, pushing Gideon’s knees apart. “It was something in the way you were moaning, the way you cried out for me. Something that left me with my hand between my legs that evening.”

It’s a tiny bit relieving to Gideon to know she wasn’t alone in that particular plight, but it certainly doesn’t help the growing need she’s feeling.

“So tell me Griddle, will you sing for me like that again?”

The sight of Harrow on her knees robs Gideon of air for a moment and she licks her lips. “I’m told I don’t carry a very good tune,” She admits, forearms flexing and relaxing, then flexing again in anticipation.

Harrow smiles as she presses a kiss to the inside of Gideon’s knee. “Oh, I’ll carry you through it, just don’t hold your pretty sounds back.”

As if Gideon’s going to deny her that when she’s asked so nicely. She watches Harrow rub her cheek against the inside of her thigh as she burnishes the skin with kisses, and she wonders what it might be like to see Harrow like this in her face paint, smudging Gideon’s thighs a medley of greys and blurring the lines painted on her lips. She wonders if that counts as sacrilege. An idea for another day.

Harrow drags her lips slowly over the muscles of Gideon’s thighs, hands caressing the skin. Her thumb runs over the puckered scar from the night at the Ida and she turns her face to kiss it gently, more so than any kiss before this. There’s always a reverence Harrow has for the near-entirely healed wound, a quiet worship of the marks left behind from the attack. This and for Gideon, the thin line running above Harrow’s eyebrow. They don’t talk a lot about what they lost that night, preferring instead to celebrate what was won, usually accompanied by slow kisses and slower touches.

Once Harrow’s paid sufficient attention to the scar, she continues her painfully slow ascent up towards the junction of Gideon’s thighs, soothing bites with her tongue and sucking new marks to paint a trail of where she’s been.

Gideon squirms the whole time, certain she’s making a mess of the chair. It’s not that she doesn’t like the attention – she loves it, it’s just that with her hands tied, with nothing to distract her from Harrow’s clever mouth and the dull aching need she has, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. 

“Come on, Harrow,” she says, voice more pinched than normal. “’m soaking wet already, quit teasing.”

Harrow laughs gently against her thigh. “Impatient.” Still, she hooks her arms under Gideon’s knees and pulls her to sit closer to the edge, pressing her lips right over her clit.

Gideon makes a pathetic little keening noise. Dear gods, Harrow’s barely even started touching her. “Harrow,” she whines. “haven’t I been good enou-”

Harrow runs her tongue along the length of Gideon and Gideon’s words dissolve into a strangled moan. Her lips wrap around Gideon’s clit and she sucks gently, hands coming up to hold Gideon’s hips down when she tries to buck.

A string of expletives leave Gideon’s lips and she clenches her fists, wanting desperately to put her hands in Harrow’s hair and hold her where she needs her. But here she has no control over the pace. No control over when Harrow finally gets her tongue on her clit and gives it the attention she wants. No control over the way Harrow takes breaks every few minutes to mouth at her thigh instead, no matter the frustrated noises she makes when she breaks away.

Harrow, for her part, is all smiles as she works her mouth over Gideon. There’s an almost terrifying cool composure on her part as she takes Gideon apart, stripping back the layers of control Gideon has over her body and wrangling it back under her control. First her hands, now her hips, and then her coherency.

“Please, Harrow, I need-”

“Fingers?” Gideon always wants fingers, and so Harrow rewards her obedience with two, curious and probing.

“Fuuuck…” Gideon tilts her head back, rolling her hips for more. It’s not enough. Hell, it’s barely anything. For all that Harrow’s talented, her fingers are skinny as all hell and Gideon can take more. Wants to take more. “More?” she pants.

“I don’t think you’re in much of a position to ask for more,” Harrow responds, pressing a kiss to her clit. Gideon’s hips tilt up again and Harrow bullies them back down, the skin under her fingers pale with the strength of her grip.

“Harrow, _please_ ,” Gideon grits out, throat bobbing as she swallows, “I need more if ’m going to finish.”

“Not without my permission,” Harrow says as if it were obvious, as if it were so simple.

It does unspeakable things to Gideon’s sex-addled brain, petrol to an uncontrolled blaze.

Harrow pointedly ignores Gideon’s half-hearted protests and puts her attention to all the different ways she can make Gideon shout her name with a tongue on her clit. The answer is plenty, and even more so when she replaces her mouth with the heel of her hand and trails her kisses up Gideon’s stomach to the valley of her breasts to lave her tongue there against pebbled nipples instead.

“Harrow please…” Gideon croaks, struggling against her bonds. “Please, I need more.” Her every nerve feels like it’s on fire, every touch drawing a stronger reaction from her than the last. 

Harrow keeps climbing, her teeth scraping up to Gideon’s shoulder. Maybe it’s a blessing, maybe it’s cruelty, but Harrow obliges, and two fingers become three.

Gideon cries out, eyes squeezed shut as she clenches down, hips bucking. “Jesus- Harrow!”

“Reverend Daughter is fine,” Harrow says without missing a beat. She rearranges herself again, coming up from kneeling to sit on Gideon’s lap, pressing kisses up along the column of Gideon’s neck.

Gideon doesn’t have the wherewithal to respond, just groans rather pathetically. Her nails dig into the wooden posts her fingers are wrapped around and she grits her teeth. Harrow’s fingers are pressing up just right inside her and she thrusts her hips sloppily to match the rhythm as best she can. “H-Harrow…”

“You’ll tell me when you’re close, yes?” Harrow reminds her, and Gideon nods, jaw clenched tight. “Good, good.” She flicks upwards with her thumb against Gideon’s clit and Gideon’s next breath sounds suspiciously like a sob.

Gideon drowns in the feeling of being wanted like this, caught between clever fingers and Harrow’s teeth. It could be a minute, it could be an eternity, she doesn’t care. Her arms flex against her bonds and she just trusts Harrow to take care of her. She’s pulled out of her train of thought by a familiar, well-loved feeling of warm tingling that starts at her feet and she makes a soft keening sound. “Close…”

Harrow hums something akin to delighted approval and rewards her with a kiss to the temple. The loss of Harrow’s fingers inside her _aches_ and Gideon sobs, fighting her restraints to try and pull Harrow back. 

“Oh hush,” Harrow says, pressing a wet finger to Gideon’s lips, chapped from panting.

Gideon stops panting for all of a second to lick at the digit and attempt to take it between her lips. She pouts when Harrow takes her fingers away tsking and looking just the slightest bit affronted. “Please?”

Harrow shakes her head. “Nope,” She teases.

Gideon’s pout deepens and she rests her chin on Harrow’s shoulder, eyes closed. She does her best to be patient, she really does. But patience is hard when the chair is wet because you are wet, and the reason you’re wet is sitting in your lap being entirely unhelpful to resolving the plight she’s caused you. 

“Your blush goes so far down,” Harrow remarks, dragging the finger from Gideon’s lips down her chin and along her throat, tracing skin turned blotchy pink down the valley of her breasts. When she gets to the curve of them, she palms one gently, rubbing her thumb gently over Gideon’s nipple.

Gideon grits her teeth but the moan still slips through, her back arching. “Harrow, _please_...”

Harrow just hums and pushes Gideon back, capturing her lips. The soft caressing of her hand turns into a claw and she drags her nails down over Gideon’s stomach, swallowing her cry with wet, open-mouthed kisses.

Gideon tears herself away to gasp for air, feeling the red lines Harrow’s nails left in their wake burn. It’s hot, a spreading warmth over overheated skin. “Shit, Harrow, I’ve been so good, ’m begging you.”

Harrow smiles, kissing the shell of her ear, and mercifully returns a hand between Gideon’s thighs. She spends a moment gliding them through soaking wet folds before pushing back in again.

Gideon moans, low and deep, dropping her head back onto Harrow’s shoulder. “You going to let me come this time?”

“Depends.”

What an asshole. Gideon loves her so much. It doesn’t take much to wind her back taut and needy again; Harrow knows too damn much about Gideon’s body and all the ways to undo her. Harrow pulls on her hair to kiss her, and Gideon tastes herself on Harrow’s lips. Everything sides a little bit on the side of too slick, too little friction, but it matters so little when Harrow’s petting her front walls and teasing out gasps like this.

While there’s nothing new to the way Harrow fucks her slow and sweet, there’s something about the way she knows her way around Gideon so well now that everything feels like an unstoppable tide, taking her towards an inevitable end.

“Close,” She whispers when her toes curl and her chest feels like it’s being sat on. She knows it’s coming and yet she still cries out in despair when she finds herself devoid of fingers. She begs for touch again, and when Harrow takes it away, the sobs on Gideon’s lips could be mistaken for worship. 

Every time Harrow brings Gideon hurtling towards the edge again, every time Gideon dutifully tells Harrow she’s close in increasingly incoherent words interspersed with babbling pleas, Harrow draws away and coos soft praises into Gideon’s ear, rubbing her muscled back only to start again. She wants to earn this. To show that she’s worthy of this orgasm and the pleasure she so desperately seeks.

Gideon’s lost count of how many times Harrow’s held her back. Maybe it’s embarrassingly few times before she’s got tears in her eyes and a hitch in every breath, maybe it’s more. Either way, she’s lost her words now, feebly rubbing her forehead against Harrow’s neck, hips canting without rhythm, shaking, chasing Harrow’s clever fingers.

“Do you think you deserve to come this time?” Harrow asks, mouthing at her ear. It’s so unfair that Harrow can still form real words.

Gideon wills something that sounds like an affirmative out of her throat, shuddering. Please, _please_.

“You’ve been so good for me, Griddle,” Harrow purrs, hand scratching at Gideon’s scalp. “So, so good.”

Gideon’s about to go cross-eyed like this. The praise and Harrow pressed up against her like this is an intoxicating concoction. She inhales deep, drunk on the scent of sweat and sex and Harrow. She makes a weak little noise, the best she can do to tell Harrow she’s close. Her hips twitch minutely, jaw clenched tight as she fights every intuition to take, every call her body makes to move. Her clit ceased throbbing a while back, just a hollow ache in her belly that begs to be filled, to be tended to with hot, slick kisses, and slicker fingers.

This time to her immense relief, Harrow doesn’t deny her again. The heel of her hand grinds up against Gideon’s clit and her fingers curl viciously.

“I have you, Gideon. Reap your rewards.”

Gideon barely registers the words. She bites down on Harrow’s shoulder and it all rushes over her, a current she won’t fight anymore, lets it pull her under. Every ruined orgasm has been made perfect in Harrow’s careful hands. Everything is bright, everything is loud. She’s been so good, she deserves this so much. 

Gideon lets go, falls, and trusts Harrow to catch her and set her down gently.

When Gideon finally gains back enough control of herself to open her eyes and look around, the world sharpening back into focus, her nose is buried in the crook of Harrow’s shoulder. She makes a little noise and blinks, extracting herself. There beside where she had quite obviously been rather tenderly placed to rest, is a neat little ring of bite marks decorating Harrow’s pale skin and Gideon flushes a little.

“Whoops. Sorry.” Or at least, that’s what she hopes comes out. Everything is still tilted half a degree to the side and her words slur out of her mouth.

The gentle pressure at the back of her head, Harrow’s hand, releases to scratch dully at her scalp. “You’ve left worse,” She says, pressing a kiss to the side of Gideon’s head. “You want me to untie the ropes?”

Gideon nods. She wants to hold Harrow. “Yeah.”

The ropes go slack with a little bit of fiddling from Harrow’s end and the moment her arms are free, Harrow’s taking them in her hands and rubbing, cooing at the imprints they’ve left in her skin.

“Did they hurt?”

Gideon shakes her head and leans in to press her face into Harrow’s chest. Gently. Or, as gently as she can. Her arms wrap around Harrow’s waist and she breathes in Harrow’s scent, delighted by how much it smells like home.

Harrow continues to pet at Gideon’s hair, breathing in and out slow and steady. “You feeling okay?”

Gideon nods. She’s sore but warm and feeling incredibly fuzzy. It also helps that she feels like she’s actually in her body again and more grounded in reality. 

Harrow gives her a gentle poke in the shoulder. “Use your words, Gideon.”

Gideon pulls away with a dopey smile.

“Yeah,” she says, pressing a kiss to Harrow’s sternum. “I’m feeling really good, actually. Thank you.”

It’s a part of their relationship they’re still working on; communication and genuine honesty is hard. The glow on Harrow’s face when she tells her though, delights Gideon in an unexpected way and she makes a mental note to appreciate Harrow with words more often. And to get better at them.

“I’m glad.”

They sit there in comfortable silence as they’ve slowly become accustomed to, stroking backs and tangling fingers like they’ve got all the time in the world. Harrow’s got her lips in Gideon’s hair and she’s humming some sort of meaningless tune Gideon sways to. Gideon holds up a hand, Harrow’s delicate fingers curled around the back of her palm and she squeezes it. Then she lifts them to her lips and presses sweet kisses to the knuckles one by one while feeling returns to her limbs. The sound Harrow makes is worth everything from the past few months.

“Hey Harrow?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“You’re still clothed.”

She feels Harrow smiles against her hair. “That I am.”

“Want to do something about that?”

Gideon wraps her arms around Harrow’s ass and stands, lifting her up. Harrow squeals and laughs bright as a bell, arms reflexively wrapping around Gideon’s neck as she’s carried to bed.

Gideon lays her down gently, pushing the sheets aside to crawl up over her and press a kiss to her nose. Their fingers intertwine together again, and Gideon brings them up over Harrow’s head. Harrow’s gorgeous splayed out like this, stars in her eyes, and the ever-present crease in her brow is gone for just this perfect moment. There’s the faintest dusting of rose on her cheeks and Gideon’s heart swells with a feeling she doesn’t have the words to explain. She squeezes their hands together.

“Harrow?”

Harrow flushes a darker pink but doesn’t look away, just smiles. “Yeah?”

“You owe me another shirt.” 

Harrow’s eyeroll looks almost painful, but it's followed by this soft snorting chuckle Gideon adds as another on the list of sounds she loves hearing Harrow make. The list is getting atrociously long, but if she’s being honest, Gideon wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the culmination of 3 weeks of crazed writing and even more crazed editing. This sits comfortably on the top of the list for longest works I've ever produced with the total word count coming to 32k+ words. It's a monster labour of love I spent a scary amount of time over and it's something I'm in incredibly proud of an excited to share with you all.  
>   
> As always with something so big, there are many people to thank.  
>   
> First and foremost, thank you to the Locked Tomb discord. Without your unflagging support, without the dopamine hits that come from seeing my snippets light up with reactions, I would have lost focus at the end of Act I.  
>   
> Thank you to those who have followed along and left kudos and comments. Each one delights me to no end. I write for myself, yes, but I polish and I publish because some ideas just take me and inspire me so deeply I cannot help but share them. Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts, your excitement, your feelings, whether here or elsewhere. For you, I write.  
>   
> My deepest thanks go, of course, to my two lovely betas. The ones whom, without their help, I would still be in editing hell trying not to think too much about this beast on my laptop.  
>   
> [@corvidlesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidlesbian). My first beta, are you proud of me that my longest sentence was only 60 words this time? Thank you for your patience. Thank you for teaching me how to do grammar for dialogue properly. Thank you for doing the tiresome work of changing all the periods that need to be commas into commas and correcting all the times I spelt Judith's name incorrectly. Thank you for encouraging me, thank you for taking a chance on a book I recommended you. To you, I owe the polish, and the gilding of this fic.  
>   
> @jpnadia. Through it all, you have been this story's greatest cheerleader, the driving force behind many a day of breaking my way through writer's block. Thank you for your careful and critical eye, your attention to detail, your dedication to helping me shape this story into something I'm proud of. Thank you for helping me find my words. Thank you for suggesting that an Epilogue should be written, already seeing exactly what this story needed before even I knew it. Thank you for your comments, for pointing out asynchronous references, for your tireless work. To you, I owe you the existence of this fic.  
>   
> And finally, Tamsyn Muir. I know you can't read this right now, at least not until you're done writing Alecto. But this is my love letter to Gideon the Ninth. This is my thank you for inspiring me to write again, and to write something long and fiery and to pour my blood and sweat into it because there is nothing greater than writing for the pure passion of it. Thank you for helping me read for my own pleasure again for the first time in years. Thank you for bringing these characters to life, I am better for having read your book.  
>   
> Signing off on this carries a lot of sentiment. I'm letting out this work I'm afraid has too much of myself in it, and also not enough. I want it to be perfect, and I know it will never be perfect. It is what it is, and I hope it is enough. It will have to be enough, or I'll drive myself mad.  
>   
> If you made it this far, thank you. Thank you for treasuring this work and holding it to the very end. If you liked it, I would appreciate kudos and comments, but ultimately those are small things. Above all else, I hope this work brings you joy and relief and all the things a good story should.  
>   
> Walk in peace.
> 
> Liked it enough to get to the end notes? Drop me a kudos and maybe a comment if you're feeling saucy and so inclined!
> 
> Title from “Glass (Redux)” by Common Deer.
> 
> Tumblr: [frumpkinspocketdimension](https://frumpkinspocketdimension.tumblr.com)  
> Discord: SweetBabyRae#0967

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a smutty one-shot but somehow it grew legs and ran away from me. Ah well, they say good things come to those who chase the plot bunnies... right?  
> I plan to put up a new Act every other day, but I've never been good at scheduling. I promise it's all done, written and edited, though, there won't be a forever incomplete fic from me, no sir.  
> Kudos and comments are more than welcome, I love a good dopamine hit.  
> Playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4f62set883chWkIJi3ALRs?si=QZE4FoKOQAuNQ6t3cOGCWw


End file.
